Marketing the Presidency

A Speakers Program presented by the Cranberry Twp Historical Society/Cranberry Public Library

We will start this speaker notice with a quote. "Don't blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.” - John D. Rockefeller – Oil baron before Jed Clampett

John D. Rockefeller was talking about a corporation’s chief executive. Our  speaker will talk about the marketing to be the Chief Executive.   The marketing has the goal of being a resident of the White House.

A second quote is: “Marketing is a contest for people's attention.” - Seth Godin – author

Presidential marketing is for the people’s attention but mainly for votes. The marketing is not just from the winners but all candidates dreaming of sitting in the Oval Office. Our Speaker, Steve Mihaley, has become a self-made expert on the items and products used to become President. Steve has been collecting presidential memorabilia for over 50 years. His personal collection has 20,000-25,000 different political items from Presidential campaigns from the past 150+ years. Many of the items are from Western Pennsylvania.

He traces the Marketing for the Presidency back to James Monroe, our fifth President who took office in 1817. Monroe had a snuff box made with his likeness which referenced the Monroe Doctrine. However, the turning point in the marketing for the Chief Executive Office stretches back to The United States presidential election of November 3, 1896. That election saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan. That election used the first political buttons that are still used today. Those buttons led to campaign sunglasses, hats, records, sugar cubes, soap, nail files, etc. Steve will bring several items from his collection for you to examine. You will learn about many of the issues within the various campaigns used to market entry to the Presidency. Many of these items and issues are comical in nature.

Please note, this is not a talk about political ideology; this is an educational talk, so we ask that you come to just enjoy Mr. Mihaley. (However, if you are a founding member of the Whig party circa 1834, we do want to know your political position.)

Steve is the former V.P. for Customer Financial Services of the H.J. Heinz Company and now enjoys his election material hobby full time. He is a resident of the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. As Steve is covering close to 200 years of history, it is one of our longer talks.

This is a light and fun program. Please come and learn and enjoy how political candidates promoted their way to office. Spend the evening with the Historical Society and the Cranberry Library. The meeting will be held within the library’s Franklin Station room. Please register in advance for this talk. You can do it three different ways:

1. by going to the library’s registration page at: https://goo.gl/tKeLxN
2. by calling the Library at (724) 776-9100 Ext 3
3. by calling Tom Cully and leaving a message at (724) 776-6551.

We will see you on Tuesday April 3rd at 6:30 pm in the Library. Light refreshments will be served at the meeting, who knows, maybe even peanuts.