During the recent election campaigns in the United States, speculative arguments about the use or the abuse of televised political spot commercials to "package" and "sell" the candidates to the public were widespread. With this popularly held belief in mind, the present study concerned itself with the reactions to and utilization of televised political advertising by the electorate during the 1972 presidential campaign. Findings of this survey indicated that the campaign strategists in 1972 presidential elections had a relatively small margin of "undecided" voters to work with. However, to a certain degree the political advertising was functionally utilized by most to obtain information about the presidential candidates while not necessarily yielding to the persuasive intent of the message. (Author)