Sigurd S. Larmon Quotes
During the last 20 years the advent of radio changed all the old rules of political campaigning. Now the successful advent of television, available for the first time this year in a presidential campaign, must again influence the planning of the campaign. Television, with its triple advantages of sight, sound and motion, can make or break a candidate, a party or a platform. In my opinion television must not be considered as supplementary media but as the heart of your program to “win friends and influence people.”
Sigurd Stanton Larmon, 1891-1987, President, Young & Rubicam Advertising Agency, Letter to his friend, Dwight Eisenhower, July 18, 1952
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was the first time that an American President was “sold’ to the voters in the same way that consumer goods were marketed to the public. Within 20 year, all presidential campaigns have been used these merchandising techniques.
This was the first time that an American President was “sold’ to the voters in the same way that consumer goods were marketed to the public. Within 20 year, all presidential campaigns have been used these merchandising techniques.
Ailes was the inventor of the "Video News Release", a deceptive practice which was so successful that politicians of all political stripes started using it. Then government agencies started promoting their programs using it. But soon private corporations adopted Ailes technique and made the Video News Release a mainstream advertising and public relations technique and by 1990, it had lost all ethical taints and was used throughout the world with very little of the old moral and ethical compunctions or stigma.
Television was a new campaign technique and the Democrats had been trying to broadcast entire Stevenson speeches. But the cost was very high and the Republicans who more quickly embraced the new political tool had been producing and running short 30 second and 1 minute advertisement “spots.” This was to the intellectuals of the day a very ethically questionable practice as it resembled advertising and marketing of consumer products. Ball in this quotation told the staff that in order to compete in the then new campaign world of television, the Democrats too would have to use “spots”—political TV advertisements. From this campaign onward, television would become the dominant political communications medium and “spots” became not only acceptable but became the dominant TV technique and the telecasting of entire speeches of the candidates would no longer be broadcast. See candidate Stephenson’s remark about the subject: #
Given the early year, with television available in only New York and large cities and hardly any viewers, it is fascinating that White could see the importance of the new medium. Masters of old media tend to underestimate the power and advantage of new media.
The Democrat campaign operators, led by Robert Woolley, for the first time in an American Presidential campaign, used all the new techniques of public relations and advertising that had been developed. Many observers like the New Republic editors saw this in a negative light for American democracy. They wanted the old method where people met the candidates and had discussions with candidates or heard from others who had. It was in retrospect an editorial of nostalgia, as the country was growing so much that voter “acquaintance” with Presidential candidates was becoming more and more difficult.
Haldeman was then an advertising executive nat J. Walter Thompson
Sigurd S. Larmon, was chairman of Young & Rubicam from 1944 to 1962 and was a leading figure in advertising. Young & Rubicam, now the largest independent advertising agency in the United States, was founded in 1923 in Philadelphia by Raymond Rubicam and John Orr Young, who moved it to New York in 1926. Mr. Larmon joined the agency in 1929, became its president in 1942 and chairman in 1944. He guided the agency from the era of print and radio advertising into the television age. He increased the number of employees at the agency to 2,736, from 652. Under his management, the agency's billings grew to $280 million in 1962, from $40 million in 1942.
