"It is possible to persuade people to act irrationally if you link products to their unconscious desires and feelings”

There are so many exciting things that I want to impart to you about this character, that I hadn’t heard of until yesterday, I just don’t know where to start. I guess I should start with the basics. His

 name is Edward Bernays, he was the nephew of Sigmund 

Freud and he lived from 1891-1995, in America. I was sent a BBC video called The Century of Self by a friend, which was the inspiration for this post. It is where I have got most of my information from, and where most of the quotes in this post are from, unless otherwise specified.  Eddie Bernays was the first person to use product placement, celebrity endorsement and he instilled in America the idea that products were an extension of the personality. He convinced regular people, not just businesses, to invest in shares, by borrowing money from banks that he represented. Single handed he doubled that market for cigarettes.  He invented Public Relations.

The significance of what Bernays achieved in unfathomable. The entire society that we live in would be an utterly different place. Goebbels used many of his ideas for Nazi propaganda; the fashion industry thrives on a concept of style as an appendage of the self that he created. He introduced the idea that democracy and capitalism are entwined and need each other to survive.

“If you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace”

Bernays’ initial dabbling into this idea began with a conversation between himself and George Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Association. In the early 1920s it was not permissible for women to smoke in public, and many places had laws against it. Not only was this seen as grossly unfair by women who were fighting so hard for equal rights, but this prohibition noticeably cut the cigarette market by half. The exchange between Bernays and Hill was to determine whether anything could be done about this. With much help from Dr. A. A. Brill and using a paper, written and sent to him by his famous uncle, on psychoanalysis Bernays determined that cigarettes were “a symbol of the penis and male sexual power”. Bernays decided to make the cigarette a sign of freedom and liberation for women, to smoke would mean you were a “new women”. A modern, enlightened, open-minded woman unchained from the shackles of men.

The slogan, the hook, the pictures, the article, all of this was thought up by Bernays for this stunt. All he had to do was get the photographers to be in the right place to take the pictures and let the journalists hear the story. It was New York City, March 31^st 1929. The world famous Easter Day Parade was in full swing. The whole city was watching and the rest of the United States was waiting to hear about it in their morning paper. The photographers and journalists been alerted that a group of suffragettes were going to use, what they called, “torches of freedom” to protest by lighting up cigarettes in the street. These women were young, affluent, wear fashionable clothes, they were debutantes. They were not to be taken lightly by the press or the public.

The view of America at that juncture was a place of emancipation; its whole culture was based on liberation. The Pledge of Allegiance, which would have been said by American citizens many at public gatherings, even contains the words “liberty and justice for all”. Any person who agrees with these principles must now agree, by definition, with women smoking in public, simply by using the word “freedom”.

 

"If Edward Bernays were the father of spin, then Obama is the son."

Larry Tye

In Nancy Snow’s article If Edward Bernays was on Obama’s PR council she presents an extremely valid point that Bernays could only used PR in an abusive because he knew how to use it in a “pure” way. She relates this to the present and former Presidents of the United States, saying that each President fashions their policies with the greater good in mind, but that they always end up getting involved in the “Big Sell”. Maybe if everyone knew a little more about Bernays and the things that he did the industry and the leaders of this world could use it in the “pure” way. And maybe the consumers and citizens would learn to be more aware of the tricks that it uses.

“Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.”

Don Draper

 So if marketing is just a way of making people feel excepted, then it must be ok. But if marketing is just a way of making people feel that being accepted is just out of thier grasp then that's not good, is it? Bernays' interest and use of psycho-analysis lead to leading the masses down the path that he wants, making them believe that they are getting what they what- but what's the difference between giving someone what they want and making someone believe that they are getting what they want? Is it wrong to give people what they want by taking away thier deffences?