The 1950's Tide advert reflects the growing economic optimism of America during the post war period. US manufacturing emerged unscathed from the European bombing campaigns of the Second World War, while the American economy benefited from the economic uplift that Allied arms sales brought. 

The affluence of America and the widespread availability of luxury goods resulted in a wide-scale embourgeoisement of American society and the realisation that a middle-class lifestyle could be attained by a wide cross-section of society. 

The washing machine illustration in the Tide advert clearly signifies the growing availability of luxury white goods in the US. The central model’s cheerful consumer-driven happiness and her flawless filmstar embrace of Tide further outlines the middle class ideals that could be attained through purchase of an everyday product.

The advert, in this sense, uses symbolic positioning to construct an aspirational window-to-the-future self for the reader - a portrayal of middle class ideals that the reader could easily attain through consumer driven consumption.