their way to buy the product at the nearest store. Had I invented the ultimate advertisement? I burned it, and never told my client how close I had come to landing him in a national scandal. One way and another, the odds against your being manipulated by advertising are now very long indeed. Even if I wanted to manipulate you, I wouldn’t know how to circumvent the legal regulations. Hold your horses – I almost forgot. There is one category of advertising which is totally uncontrolled and flagrantly dishonest: the television commercials for candidates in Presidential elections. Political chicanery While statesmen in England, France and Persia have sometimes consulted me, I have never taken political parties as clients of Ogilvy & Mather. First, because they would preoccupy the best brains of the agency, to the detriment of its permanent clients. Second, because they are bad credit risks. Third, because it would be unfair to those people in the agency who pray for the victory of the opposing party. And finally, because it would be difficult to avoid the chicanery which is endemic in all political campaigns. The first politician to use television was Governor Dewey in his 1950 campaign for the governorship of New York. On one program, Happy Felton, the entertainer, interviewed passers-by under the marquee of the Astor Hotel on 7th Avenue. They would say what interested them in the campaign, and ask questions of the Governor. Dewey watched them on a monitor in the studio, and answered their questions. The day before, his staff had carefully selected the passers-by. They had told them what they were interested in, and rehearsed their questions. On the last day of the campaign, Dewey was on television from 6 am to midnight. People could telephone the studio. Four women on camera answered the calls and passed along the questions for Dewey to answer. A member of his staff was in a phone booth at the corner drugstore with a pile of nickels.