Quality Street (1956) — Eduqas GCSE Media Studies C680
Eduqas GCSE Media Studies · C680
Quality Street (1956)
Print advertisements
What you need to know
A 1956 print advert for Quality Street chocolates, in which a man in formal dress is shown choosing between two women, dressed to echo the sweets pictured beneath them, with the brand's Regency characters, Miss Sweetly and Major Quality, in a gold frame behind them.
Media language: the hand-drawn illustration, the rich colour palette, the gold frame, the brand name and slogan, the persuasive language and the layout; how the advert tells a small story to sell the product.
Representation: 1950s gender roles, with women presented as choices for a man and as choosing chocolates themselves; class and the advert's ideal of respectability.
Contexts: post-war Britain, the growth of consumer culture in the 1950s, and how audiences today read the advert differently. In 2025, Question 1 asked how its layout and design, then its images, create meaning.
In the exam a copy of the product is provided, and it can be set for Question 1 (media language, 15 marks), for Question 2(a) (contexts, 5 marks) or for Question 2(b), where it is compared with an unseen product in the same form (representation, 25 marks).
Describe the advert precisely in your own words, quoting no more than a few words of its text.
