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"Never Had It So Good"

The “Eisenhower Answers America” ads, conceived and created by Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates and Company, were as bold in conception as they were simple in execution. The campaign created forty “spot ads,” each consisting of a question from an ordinary voter and a response from the candidate. The answers were filmed first, in a midtown Manhattan studio, with General Eisenhower reading off of cue cards. The questions were filmed later, read by tourists who were scouted in front of Radio City Music Hall. Eisenhower is filmed in the elevated position; the questioners all look up at him, establishing a personal connection but also keeping him in the position of the hero. The ads stick to three key points: high prices, the war in Korea, and gridlock in Washington. Yet the spots are clearly selling more than just the answers to these problems; they are selling Eisenhower’s personality. The campaign spent nearly two million dollars to saturate the airwaves with these ads in twelve key states during a three-week period in October. Adlai Stevenson’s campaign manager George Ball decried the effort to sell Eisenhower in the same manner as “soap, ammoniated toothpaste, hair tonic, or bubble gum.” Stevenson was the first—and last—candidate to refuse to appear in TV ads.
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Transcript

Museum of the Moving Image
The Living Room Candidate - Transcript
"Never Had it So Good," Eisenhower, 1952

[TEXT: EISENHOWER answers AMERICA]

MALE NARRATOR: Eisenhower answers America.

MAN: General, the Democrats are telling me I never had it so good.

EISENHOWER: Can that be true when America is billions in debt, and prices have doubled and taxes break our backs, and we are still fighting in Korea? It's tragic. And it's time for a change.
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Credits

"Never Had It So Good," Citizens for Eisenhower, 1952

Maker: Rosser Reeves for Ted Bates and Co.

Video courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

From Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2008.
www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1952/never-had-it-so-good (accessed May 16, 2012).

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Introduction

"The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."
-Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson, 1956

"Television is no gimmick, and nobody will ever be elected to major office again without presenting themselves well on it."
-Television producer and Nixon campaign consultant Roger Ailes, 1968

In a media-saturated environment in which news, opinions, and entertainment surround us all day on our television sets, computers, and cell phones, the television commercial remains the one area where presidential candidates have complete control over their images. Television commercials use all the tools of fiction filmmaking, including script, visuals, editing, and performance, to distill a candidate's major campaign themes into a few powerful images. Ads elicit emotional reactions, inspiring support for a candidate or raising doubts about his opponent. While commercials reflect the styles and techniques of the times in which they were made, the fundamental strategies and messages have tended to remain the same over the years.

The Living Room Candidate contains more than 300 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads 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.