Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2004

The Living Room Candidate via Design Observer:

When television emerged as a mass medium in the early 1950s, TV advertising became an essential campaign tool. In 1948, there were TV sets in just 400,000 American homes. Over the next four years, the number rose to nineteen million. In 1952, Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves proposed the first political advertising strategy for television. He convinced Dwight Eisenhower that spot ads-twenty-second commercials played during such popular TV programs as I Love Lucy-would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run.