History of Political Advertisement

Dora Craven, Junior

December 7, 2016

For years, the citizens of America have voted our previous presidents based on their specific stands on governmental and political issues at home and worldwide. But what really has determined the outcome of elections are the quality of their political campaigns’ advertisements. Political advertisement has changed rapidly throughout our great country's history, starting with candidates meeting with voters, kissing babies, and shaking hands, all the way to modern political advertisement, targeting social media and using guerrilla advertising.

In the beginning of political advertising, long before the use of television, many candidates would meet with voters around the country, normally just endorsing town-hall debates and simply shaking hands with the voters. In 1948, presidential candidate and former 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, ventured over 31,000 miles across America, shaking over half a million hands and directly encountering swarms of voters. This sort of commitment was a leading factor in President Truman’s inevitable victory.

However, as this method was effective, once television emerged, it opened up a whole new range of political techniques to win over public voters. One of the very first television campaign ads portrayed a cartoon elephant where a cheerful chime sang about “how much we all like Ike.” This ad was created by Irving Berlin (creator of the song itself) and Walt Disney Studios, and is labeled “upbeat” and “cute”.

This particular campaign ad was fabricated to aid candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower in his success in the presidential election of 1952, against candidate Adlai Stevenson. Adlai Stevenson, who was a former Illinois governor, frequently declined running for the Democratic party, but eventually capitulated. Many of Stevenson’s ads portrayed himself as an average American citizen, and in order to contradict Stevenson’s claim that “the Democratic Party was a party of the ordinary American” and that the “Republican Party was a party of the few”, Eisenhower developed numerous ads offering testimony of American citizens, such as his documentary-style ad, “Women Voters.” This ad was more so an acknowledgement that women were crucial to Eisenhower’s inevitable victory.

In 1960, the famous American politician, John F. Kennedy attempted to become the very first Catholic president and, achieving such, also became the youngest man ever elected into office. His rival, Richard Milhous Nixon, was a Republican congressman who served as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president. He was quite fidgety on camera, and said to have “sweat on his brow and looked troubled,” according to “www.thebalance.com”. Nixon provoked issues on the Cold War and addressed governmental corruption, winning him the popular vote. However, John Kennedy ad’s focused on his amazing impulsive conversive abilities, using excerpts from rallies, speeches, and debates. Kennedy had a variety of endorsement ads, one in particular focused on Spanish-language, aiming towards Hispanic American citizens. Although, plenty of Kennedy’s ads were beautifully put together, there are only two pivotal characteristics that won J.F.K. the election; the first was a fervent and heartfelt speech to the Houston Ministerial Association, where he participated in an informal and seemingly unpretentious question and answer period. Here, he responded to several concerns of Catholicism and how it was “incompatible with the secular office of president.” Kennedy reassured the public that he “proclaimed his allegiance to the separation of church and state” and adapted this affair into a cross-examination of religious tolerance. The second had everything to do with his appearance and the his “modus operandi” or his manner of addressing the public. His appearance was pleasurable to the human eye, appearing to be tanned, assertive, and flourishing. In contrast, Nixon tended to wear little to no makeup and a lightly colored suit that made him blur into the background. His expression was always one of exhaustion and apparently “sweated profoundly.”

Shortly after Eisenhower’s two term presidency, many candidates began to realize how profitable it was to attack opposing candidates, first surfacing in the infamous “Daisy Girl” ad. Used in the political election of 1964, Barry Goldwater vs. Lyndon B. Johnson, the “Daisy Girl” ad warned citizens a “vote for Barry Goldwater meant nuclear war.” Aired during an NBC broadcast of “Monday Night at the Movies” on the 7th of September, the ad illustrated a young girl counting to ten as she plucks petals of a daisy flower. Once the girl reaches nine, a menacing anonymous male voice commences counting down from zero, the camera zooming towards the little girl as she dissolves into an atomic blast emanating from a nuclear bomb. The creator of “Daisy Girl”, Tony Schwartz, stated the ad to be “the first Rorschach test on the American public”. A Rorschach test is a “psychological test in which a subject's interpretations of a series of standard inkblots are analyzed as an indication of personality traits, preoccupations, and conflicts”. The “Daisy Girl” political ad was suggestive towards Johnson’s correlation with nuclear warfare, and the sounds and visuals were fairly provocative with human emotions. Just recently, Hillary Clinton used this very ad to question Donald Trump’s stand on nuclear war. Tony Schwartz’s ad kick-started a ritual of pessimistic advertising that Presidential candidates continue to use to this day.

In the election of 1972, George McGovern tried his hardest to stay away from such negative advertisement, and normally reflected the “populist nature of his campaign. Many were just films of McGovern informally encountering voters within factories, meeting halls, hospitals and senior-citizen centers. This technique was introduced in France in the 1950s, known formally as“ cinéma vérité”, where the camera films persons and events without directorial control. This advertisement mad McGovern seem compassionate, but was not considered presidential material, ad was eventually forced to run attack ads in order to gain some momentum in the election. During this election, Nixon had once again ran for the Republican candidate, and few of McGovern’s “attack ads” against him were delivered with “a crawl of white text against a black background.” Even with McGovern’s drastic attempt to win the presidency, Nixon ended up winning 49 states to 1. This time around, Nixon’s attack ad campaign was a “two-pronged” attack portraying Nixon as successful in world leadership and McGovern as a “reckless liberal”. His positive ads gave voters a glimpse inside the White House, with Nixon attending state dinners, meetings with world leaders, and hard at work inside the Oval Office; this style of documentary gave voters a feeling of amity and actuality, nearly to the point where the voters were under the impression they were being honored by this benefit. Some ads addressed Nixon’s issue with character (viewed as antisocial and barbarized); they showed him in his most relaxing moments, such as him playing a piano for Duke Ellington, joking with Chinese translators, and dancing with his own daughter at her wedding. His most effective campaign ads mocked McGovern’s proposal of defense cuts (gun limitation) by using of a rough hand sweeping away toy soldiers, planes and warships. His last victorious ad claimed that McGovern would put 47% of the country on welfare, which was a fallacy in and of itself. Nixon used tricks and games to win his election as president, but this sort of tactic obviously proved as useful and effective.

Disregarding a handful of elections on the way, in the election of both 1992 and 1996, William J. Clinton was the first presidential candidate to effectively use more of the non-traditional forms of political advertisement; he would appear on daytime TV talk shows and other channels such as MTV. This approach seized the attention of young voters, and it was this attention that won him his victory in both ‘92 and ‘96. In 1992, the United States was on the verge of an economic calamity, and Clinton primarily focused on this particular issue. A sign at William Clinton’s campaign headquarters read “It’s the economy, stupid!” which wrapped up his entire political perspective. In the election of ‘96, due to an economic conflict between presidential power and Congress, the United States was forced to terminate the federal government twice. It was this conflict that Clinton blamed on the Republicans, causing many United States citizens to perceive Republicans as extremists, and placed Clinton at the center of harmony. Ads depicted grainy black-and-white footage of Bob Dole (his rival competitor) next to the Grinch, and in contrast, vivid, cheery videos outlined Clinton’s achievements in a variety of social programs.

As mentioned before, political advertisement has changed drastically throughout history, but the real game-changer was President Barack Obama. Obama ran some negative ads against his rival John McCain; however, the majority of his ads had been focused primarily on one simple positive message: Hope. Using the internet and guerilla advertising, his popularity soared throughout the citizens of the United States. Many internet blogs and message boards carried this idea of hope across the nation, grabbing the attention and possible admiration for Obama’s stance. Guerilla advertising or marketing is type of “strategic concept designed for businesses (or presidential candidates, in this case) to promote their products or services in an unconventional way with little budget to spend” according to wikipedia.com..This advertising involves high energy and imagination focusing on grasping the attention of the public in more personal and memorable levels, and Barack Obama used this weapon beautifully. Shepard Fairey constructed an iconic poster of a patriotic red, white, and blue colored photo of Obama’s face, with the word “Hope” in bold beneath, which had been seen across streets of America. The use of these modern methods, not to mention his charismatic personality and his charming youth, won his inevitable victory over the older, more traditional Republican opponent, McCain.

As of today, many have a fair idea of our current presidential affair: Hillary Clinton against the infamous Donald Trump. This election year has seen some of the most diverse campaigning in the entire history of modern advertising, creating many loathsome groups, distrust, and an ill feeling towards all presidential elections. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has spent $61 million on general election campaign ads. In addition, pro-Clinton groups have spent $43 million, bringing the total amount spent on Clinton ads to $104 million. Surprisingly, Donald Trump’s campaign had not spent a single dollar on ad time. However, pro-Trump groups have run TV spots, thus far spending $12.4 million. According to “heavy.com”, Trump believe it’s not necessary for him to purchase any advertising considering" he is already on television all the time." Inevitably, Donald Trump has one such election, but hope isn’t lost, quite yet.