An electric soap advertisement by Dobbins connects its product with the seven stages of man’s life depicted by William Shakespeare in his famous comedy As You Like It. An advertisement artist quoted Shakespeare to illustrate how Dobbins electric soap accompanies a man throughout his life, from infancy in his mother’s hand to old age (Appendix). This smart idea allowed an artist to demonstrate an ever-present relevance of the company’s product through a memorable, ironic art style; the ages of infancy and adolescence are painted particularly close to the play. While I enjoyed Dobbins’ approach to advertising, I would have made several changes in the order of image placement and drawing details. Firstly, I would have created a more distinctive image of a soldier from the fourth image, as the original advertiser somewhat failed to portray the essence of this age. A soldier is supposed to be “full of strange oaths, bearded like a pard,” and “jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel” (Shakespeare). Therefore, I would have depicted a soldier as a proud, formidable man with a red coat, a famous uniform of the English royal army, hanging on a chair as he trims his mustache. Secondly, I would have changed the placement of the fifth and the seventh images so that the man’s ages shown in these pictures would match the original speech from Shakespeare’s play. Finally, I would have redone the fifth image entirely since it does not capture the meaning of Shakespeare’s words and replaces old age with another depiction of infancy. Instead, I would have painted a wise, old man who still uses Dobbins electric soap to groom his impressive white beard and mustache.
Work Cited
Shakespeare, William. “Speech: “All the World’s a Stage”.” Poetry Foundation.