General Dwight Eisenhower produced the first presidential television commercials to defeat Governor Adlai Stevenson in 1952, forever changing the way we elect presidents.
(Suggestion: View a few of the 1952 presidential commercials on the Museum of the Moving Image website, then return to this page for additional insights into those spots.)
Dwight Eisenhower changed the way America chooses its president when he and Adlai Stevenson introduced television commercials in their 1952 campaigns. According to the Museum of the Moving Image, Republican Thomas Dewey had refused to use such spots in 1948, saying they were "undignified."
Stevenson compared the brief spots to soap commercials and said they showed "contempt" for the intelligence of the American people. Instead, he did 18 televised half hour speeches, which had been standard strategy in previous elections. He declined to appear in the commercials made for him in 1952.
However, Rosser Reeves, a New York advertising executive who had previously created the "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" commercials for M&M candies, convinced Eisenhower to use 20-second commercials instead of the half hour speeches.
The Eisenhower team produced forty spots for Eisenhower in one day, all built around the theme "Eisenhower Answers America." After an American voter asked Eisenhower a question, the general read his answer from a cue card, not quite sounding spontaneous, but coming close.
American voters melted in Eisenhower's hands, or at least in his commercials.
The commercials, which were unique for their times, helped the general to overwhelm Stevenson. And because of their success, they forever changed the way Americans elect presidents.
Even Stevenson relented in 1956 and appeared in spots for his second unsuccessful campaign against Eisenhower.
