MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO, THE: MADISON AVENUE GOES TO WASHINGTON: THE HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ADVERTISING {WITH JEFF GREENFIELD}
Summary
In the summer of 1952, veteran adman Rosser Reeves approached a group of Dwight Eisenhower supporters with a revolutionary idea: why not run television commercials touting their presidential candidate? Reeves -- a hard-sell prophet celebrated for his "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" commercials for M&M's and his hammer-pounding spots for Anacin -- had approached Republican presidential hopeful Thomas Dewey about running ads four years earlier, but Dewey had dismissed the idea as undignified. Resistance was initially stiff within the Eisenhower camp as well, but Reeves ultimately prevailed, and later that year Eisenhower taped a series of spots titled "Eisenhower Answers America" -- the first presidential commercials ever to run on television.
While the ads probably had little impact on Eisenhower's victory over Adlai Stevenson, they heralded a revolution in American politics. Just four years before, Harry Truman had trekked 31,000 miles across America to shake the hands of 500,000 people; in 1952 Eisenhower made a single trip to New York to film three dozen commercials, each of which could be seen on as many as 19 million television sets across the country. The age of the whistle-stop campaign was ending; the era of the televised campaign had begun. Today, political ads may well be the dominant means by which presidential candidates communicate their messages to voters.
"Madison Avenue Goes to Washington: The History of Presidential Campaign Advertising" is a compendium of the most memorable and historically significant presidential commercials created from 1952 through 2004 for fourteen general elections. This screening, which includes narration placing the ads in historical context, traces the evolution of presidential advertising from crudely produced novelty items to intricately researched spots featuring state-of-the-art production and marketing techniques. It also reveals that the fundamental task of political advertising has remained remarkably consistent, in spite of advancements in production values and market research. Whether presented as heroic portraits or slanderous attacks, these ads all share a common aim: to sell the promise of an increasingly peaceful and prosperous world through the visage of a new and/or improved presidential candidate.
Key Ads:
1950s: "Eisenhower Answers America"; Nixon's Checker's speech; Stevenson's "Man from Liberty" spot;
1960s: Kennedy dismisses fears about his Catholicism; Eisenhower can't cite a significant contribution from Nixon over the previous eight years; Nixon's democratic still-photo spots of 1968 appeal to "forgotten Americans"; Johnson's "daisy" spot questions Goldwater's emotional stability;
1970s: Nixon's trio of "Democrats for Nixon" spots; McGovern's cinema-verite spots; and the unaired spot by Tony Schwartz in which a Vietnamese woman clutches a dead infant in her arms;
1980s: Reagan's "Morning in America" and bear spots; Mondale's Reaganomics spots; the Republican's 1988 Willie Horton, Boston Harbor, and tank ads;
1990s: Bush highlights his own military career and attacks Clinton's explanation for escaping the draft; Clinton's explanation for escaping the draft; Clinton reminds voters of Bush's pledge not to raise taxes; Perot's chart-enhanced budget analyses; and
2000s: 2000 Republican National Committee's subliminal "RATS" spot in campaign against Al Gore; MoveOn.org's 2003-2004 "Bush in 30 Seconds" Internet competition.
Details
- NETWORK: N/A
- DATE: November 30, 2003
- RUNNING TIME: 1:27:32
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:82787
- GENRE: N/A
- SUBJECT HEADING: Advertising, political; Commercials, political; U S - Presidential elections
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jeff Greenfield … Narrator
- George Bush
- George W. Bush
- Bill Clinton
- Thomas Dewey
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Barry Goldwater
- Al Gore
- Willie Horton
- Lyndon B. Johnson
- John F. Kennedy
- George McGovern
- Walter Mondale
- Richard M. Nixon
- Ross Perot
- Ronald Reagan
- Rosser Reeves
- Tony Schwartz
- Adlai Stevenson
- Harry Truman