August 12, 2010

Edward Bernays on Public Relations

Edward Bernays is called the Father of Spin (The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and The Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye) because of his great contribution to the development of the Public Relations profession. Bernays was wise enough to:
  • link democracy to business
  • to shape the new mentality of America
  • to transform the way Americans thought about products
The success of his PR campaigns was based on tactics that influenced the subconscious mind and made people buy products to satisfy their only need of feeling better.

Bernays made smoking cigarettes socially acceptable, through the idea that cigarettes for women were a form of liberation, a sign of the new, free woman. The cigarettes were "torches of freedom," a new step in the march towards equality of the sexes.

(full story - video below)

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