The Essay Notes

IB English Language and Literature Paper 1 Exemplar

Making It Real

1. To fully understand the purpose behind each detail in the Dettol campaign, it’s essential to consider both the author’s intentions and the audience’s mindset.
2. So, let’s place ourselves in the position of a reader:
   1. It’s 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. You’re stuck at home, constantly reminded of hygiene guidelines, feeling mentally drained, and maybe even rethinking your job or routine.
   2. You come across a bold, engaging Dettol advertisement in your feed or on a billboard. It’s bright, witty, and oddly empowering. It doesn’t just sell you a disinfectant, it taps into your current state of mind.
3. From this setup, the creator of the ad would be asking:
   1. Who is most likely to be feeling disillusioned with traditional work routines and in need of empowerment or change?
   2. How can Dettol’s campaign attract attention and resonate with people navigating pandemic stress and remote work?
   3. How can the ad feel motivational, personal, and relevant to ensure people associate Dettol with not just hygiene, but optimism, control, and daily empowerment?

Pre-planning (Dettol Advertisement)

1. Before beginning your annotation or analysis, clarify the foundational elements of the text:
2. Text Type: Advertisement (Print and Digital Campaign)
3. Overall Purpose:
   1. To promote Dettol as more than a hygiene product, positioning it as a symbol of empowerment, optimism, and leadership during the pandemic.
   2. The campaign aims to reinforce brand identity, encourage brand loyalty, and ultimately increase sales by connecting emotionally with readers navigating remote work and public health concerns.

Target Audience(s)

1. Working adults (especially those working from home during the pandemic)
   1. These are individuals frustrated with conventional work structures and looking for purpose, routine, or motivation during uncertain times.
      (This is the primary audience for the text.)
2. Health-conscious individuals
   1. Those already interested in cleanliness and hygiene during the pandemic and who are likely to purchase disinfectant products regularly.
3. Everyday consumers affected by COVID-related changes
   1. This includes middle-class individuals across Britain dealing with lockdown fatigue, seeking some control or reassurance in their daily routines.
4. The typical demographic includes middle to lower-middle class individuals in the UK, many of whom are either working from home, unemployed, or facing personal or professional uncertainty during 2020.

Exemplar Plan: Dettol Campaign (2020)

Structure:

Each paragraph is based on a distinct idea that supports the overall thesis.

Thesis

The Dettol campaign reimagines a hygiene product as a symbol of empowerment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through colloquial tone, irony, motivational rhetoric, and deliberate visual design, the campaign appeals to lower to middle-class Britons working from home, ultimately strengthening Dettol’s identity as a socially aware and essential brand.

Bird’s Eye View

1. Dettol draws on pandemic-specific context and cultural references to create resonance and relatability.
2. The campaign uses motivational tone and irony to encourage personal agency and emotional engagement.
3. Language devices such as listing, metaphor, and humour are employed to reinforce relatability and brand positioning.
4. Visual elements like colour, image, and layout are strategically designed to enhance brand recognition and emotional appeal.

Point 1: Dettol uses pandemic context and cultural references to create emotional resonance.

1. “Wake up whenever. No suits. No ties. No rules.”
   1. The use of irony and a list of short, fragmented clauses
   2. Mocks rigid office routines and provides comic relief, aligning with readers' pandemic fatigue.
2. “Sticky tube floors”
   1. A cultural in-joke familiar to British readers
   2. Builds ethos and relatability, presenting Dettol as a brand that understands its audience.
3. September 2020 campaign launch
   1. Aligns with remote work culture and heightened public concern over hygiene
   2. Demonstrates contextual awareness and reinforces Dettol’s relevance.

Point 2: The tone shifts from humorous to motivational to increase reader engagement and empower the audience.

1. “Choose your niche, your clients, your collaborators.”
   1. Use of imperatives and synthetic personalisation
   2. Gives the reader agency and positions them as the central figure in the narrative.
2. “Be a leader of diversity, not an example of diversity.”
   1. A didactic tone with antithesis
   2. Emphasises self-determination, encouraging the reader to act rather than observe.
3. Tone progression from casual to assertive
   1. Shifts the reader’s emotional response from amusement to inspiration
   2. Reinforces Dettol’s purpose of motivating and empowering its audience.

Point 3: Language devices enhance relatability, humour, and persuasive power.

1. “More time with your kids... your hobbies...”
   1. Positive listing
   2. Highlights the personal benefits of home life, appealing to emotion and aspiration.
2. “No backstabbing colleagues, creepy bosses, or dirty toilets.”
   1. Negative listing and informal humour
   2. Uses exaggeration and shared grievances to foster identification and lighten the tone.
3. “Wipe away the grime... Disinfect the world...”
   1. Wordplay and metaphor
   2. Ties Dettol’s cleaning function to broader symbolic ideas of renewal and control.

Point 4: Visual elements guide the reader’s attention and reinforce brand recognition.

1. Green and white colour palette
   1. Brand colour symbolism
   2. Evokes cleanliness and aligns the visual aesthetic with Dettol’s identity.
2. Centre placement of the Dettol bottle
   1. Product positioning
   2. Ensures instant brand recognition and visual anchoring.
3. Image of a dog in blankets with direct gaze
   1. Domestic imagery and visual engagement
   2. Creates emotional warmth and directly engages the reader, enhancing relatability.

Model Answer (20/20)

Introduction

‘Dettol's’ campaign is a series of advertisements that began running in September 2020 amidst the global pandemic COVID-19. Based on the corporate nature of the ad and content discussed, the primary purpose of this text is to increase Dettol's brand awareness and brand loyalty in an attempt to maximize profits. Based on the colloquial language used, it can also be inferred that the primary audience of this campaign are lower to middle class individuals in Britain, as suggested by the strong messages of entrepreneurial empowerment. As such, a secondary purpose can be identified as Dettol aims to use this campaign to encourage employees to take charge of their work life. Throughout the text, the author uses listing, metaphors and rhetorical devices to achieve their aims. I will also be exploring how context, tone and language is used to further achieve the author’s purpose.

Point 1: Context

A campaign that began in September 2020, the author draws from the social and temporal context to evoke resonance with their audience. During a period of government mandated lockdown in an attempt to "flatten the curve" of COVID-19, Dettol capitalized on this opportunity by recognizing the heightened awareness and concern of public hygiene. This, paired with a large proportion of the British population forced to work from home, allowed Dettol to use irony to generate humor in its advertisement: "Wake up whenever. No Suits. No ties, No rules." By recognizing the general public sentiment of a worker's slight disdain towards the monotonous work lifestyle, Dettol immediately grasps the attention of its readers as they begin to scan the text. Similarly, Dettol draws from inside jokes common to the typical Briton to create a sense of mutual understanding, “sticky tube floors", suggesting that Dettol relates to their audience effectively using an appealing ethos to create this connection as a means to achieve their advertising aims.

Point 2: Tone

Dettol also makes use of tone to continue building on the irony of the text to better connect with the reader and to fulfill its purpose. Firstly, Dettol uses simple syntax to deliver successive punchlines, generating a conversational though almost authoritative tone. Dettol tells its audience to "choose your niche, your clients, your collaborators" directly addressing its audience to make them feel they are the main subject. This form of synthetic personalisation allows Dettol to manufacture a false sense of importance in the reader's mind, so that they are more inclined to engage with the promotional material as they feel more included. Towards the latter half of the text, the tone shifts to become more didactic: "Be a leader of diversity, not an example of diversity..." Dettol leaves readers with little choice, suggesting that to “be a leader” is all they can do. This adds on to the underlying motivational themes in the text, where Dettol aims to encourage workers to stand their ground to make way for a "cleaner, happier tomorrow."

Point 3: Literary devices

The author also uses a series of literary and stylistic devices to further influence the audience and more successfully achieve their aims. Listing is used to a great extent to demonstrate the seemingly endless choice employees can now enjoy as they work from home, "More time with your kids... your hobbies..." Likewise, listing is also employed to show readers the benefits of not just staying away from their bosses but from the office too: "No backstabbing colleagues, creepy bosses, or dirty toilets." The abundance of benefits Dettol has presented to their reader uses the gloomy realities of the pandemic, where the mockery of traditional working lifestyles may actually allow its audience to find comfort in the humor and hold onto what may be the last sense of normalcy. This only helps Dettol foster a more engaging relationship with the reader, perhaps improving their brand image. To avoid losing any benefits between brand and consumer. Towards the bottom of the text, a similar message is echoed as Dettol encourages its reader to "wipe away the grime... Disinfect the world...". This clever play of words allows Dettol to end the advertisement in a playful manner, retaining its central message while still bringing audiences back to the promotional aspect of the text considering Dettol’s cleaning properties.

Point 4: Visuals/Structure

The author also uses visual techniques, namely color, composition and image, to further engage with its audience and achieve their promotional aims. The text can be separated into three main parts, consisting of an informative, reminding and persuasive component. These parts are cleverly partitioned by the use of color (green and white) which correspond with Dettol's signature colors. Firstly, the green background is used to highlight the copy of the text, serving as the informative section as readers are presented with the benefits of working from home followed by the bolded message of "wiping away" and "disinfecting the world" in line with Dettol products functions. This is positioned towards the left where Dettol’s disinfectant bottle is placed right out center to remind audiences what their product looks like so it can be easily identified in stores. This bottle is primarily coloured in white, which connotes ideas such as hygiene and sanitation, which bode well with the aims of the firm. Towards the right, an image of someone working from home is presented. Crucially though, is the dog that sits on the owner's lap, wrapped in pink and blue fluffy blankets. This image resonates directly with the general population that has been working from home whether one is a dog owner or not. This, paired with the direct gaze of the dog, further engages the reader with the content of the text, almost breaking the fourth wall to signal their importance.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, Dettol has successfully utilized an array of visual and verbal language techniques to persuade, inform, and remind their audience of their disinfectant products amidst the global health crises in line with their commercial aims.