After entering the candy factory, Wonka and the prize winners come about the first locked door to the sugared secrets within. Wonka approaches the door and announces the code. "Ninety-nine, forty-four, one hundred percent pure," he says as he turns the doorknob. Aside from the obvious question of why Wonka would plainly reveal the secret code to his top-secret factory, one must wonder why the directors choose this familiar number pattern.

Film viewers should recognize the "99.44" motto as the ad campaign for Ivory soap, developed in the early part of the 20th century. Promising to be ninety-nine point forty-four percent free of artificial substances, Ivory was one of the first companies to bring moralism into advertising. By offering a soap so wholesome as to be free of contaminants, Ivory made the semiotic link between the purity of its product and the purity of its consumers.

Ivory's plug early in the film reminds the audience of the movie's commercial implications. Wonka, like all marketers, is selling his dream of goodness and purity to the children and their parents. Viewers learn at the end of the film that Wonka was looking for a "very honest" child with whom to share his factory. As he turns the doorknob and announces its combination, Wonka is no doubt hoping to establish the same value-laden implication as Ivory's original advertisement.