Political Advertising

Since the 1950's television ads have been used by politicians to broadcast their messages to the voters of America.

In the 1952 Eisenhower campaign, a series of short spots appeared during commercial breaks on prime time television in order to enhance Eisenhower's television image. The first political ad aired was created by Disney for the Eisenhower campaign. The ad was simplistic and upbeat, with a happy tune and a positive message. It showed Eisenhower's appeal to the middle class, the blue-collar workers of the times.

This plan of action broke new ground for political campaigning and helped Eisenhower to create a favorable image that contributed to his ultimate electoral success. During this campaign, Stevenson refused to participate in 'electronic campaigning', which was a clear advantage for Eisenhower. At the time, Stevenson stated "The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."

Another effective ad for the time period was the critically acclaimed "Fear and the Daisy Girl." This ad was produced for the Johnson campaign of 1964. This was the first 'negative' political campaign ad used to attack the candidate's opponent (Goldwater). The basic message of the ad was that if you were to vote for Goldwater, the American people would have to live in fear of continued war and nuclear bomb testing. This ad successfully used fear as a maneuver to influence the voters.

In 1984, the Mondale camp tried to get American's votes by focusing on Reagan's poor policies during his first administration. In contrast, the Reagan camp used an image-oriented campaign with ads like "Morning in America" which shows happy images of families, the elderly, and newly married couples as a way of illustrating that anyone could rise to financial success and live the American Dream especially in an economy under Reagan. Two contrasting strategies with the positive approach being victorious.

The 1988 Bush campaign used vicious television advertising "to portray Dukakis as an ineffective liberal who would gut the country's defense system and let convicted murderers out of prison."

2008 ads were noticeably sharper and more aggressive than that of previous elections.

Over the past five decades of political spot use, about one-third of all spots for presidential campaigns have been negative spots. By using negative advertising it is the candidate's intention to create bad feelings toward his/her opponent and positive feelings toward him/herself. This has been shown to be very effective when identifying or differentiating what the candidate represents.