The following is a list of

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

, and

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

campaigns orchestrated by

Edward Bernays Edward Louis Bernays ( , ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". His best-known ca ...

(22 November 1891 – 9 March 1995). Bernays is regarded as the pioneer of public relations. His influence radically changed the persuasion tactics used in

campaign advertising In politics, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign through the media to influence a political debate, and ultimately, voters. These ads are designed by political consultants and political campaign staff. Many countries re ...

and

political campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...

s. Bernays was the nephew of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

. His early adoption of Freud's

psychoanalytic PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...

theory was instrumental in defining the goals and strategies of public relations. Freud theorized that people are motivated by

unconscious Unconscious may refer to: Physiology * Unconsciousness, the lack of consciousness or responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli Psychology * Unconscious mind, the mind operating well outside the attention of the conscious mind a ...

desires. To develop public relations, Bernays synthesized elements of Freud's work with

Gustave Le Bon Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon (; 7 May 1841 – 13 December 1931) was a leading French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. He is best known for his 1895 work '' The Crow ...

's researches into

crowd psychology Crowd psychology, also known as mob psychology, is a branch of social psychology. Social psychologists have developed several theories for explaining the ways in which the psychology of a crowd differs from and interacts with that of the individ ...

, and

Wilfred Trotter Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter, FRS (3 November 1872 – 25 November 1939) was an English surgeon, a pioneer in neurosurgery. He was also known for his studies on social psychology, most notably for his concept of the herd instinct, which he fi ...

's theories of herd instinct.

Cigarettes

In the 1920s, it was considered taboo for women to smoke in public. George W. Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company, realized that his company was missing a share of the market. He hired Bernays to change the taboo and persuade women to start smoking. Bernays contacted psychoanalyst

Abraham Brill Abraham Arden Brill (October 12, 1874 – March 2, 1948) was an Austrian-born psychiatrist who spent almost his entire adult life in the United States. He was the first psychoanalyst to practice in the United States and the first translator of S ...

to understand the societal perceptions that discouraged women from smoking. Brill told him that for feminists, cigarettes were like "torches of freedom" that symbolized their nonconformity and freedom from male oppression. Bernays used this information to build a strategy. He contacted a female friend and asked her to find a group of women to march in the New York City Easter Day parade. He asked her to tell the press that a group of

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

marchers would light "

Torches of Freedom "Torches of Freedom" was a phrase used to encourage women's smoking by exploiting women's aspirations for a better life during the early twentieth century first-wave feminism in the United States. Cigarettes were described as symbols of emancipatio ...

". The women lit Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the eager photographers. The New York Times (1 April 1929) printed: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'". In the 1930s, he attempted to convince women that Lucky Strike cigarettes' forest green pack was the most fashionable color. Letters were written to interior and fashion designers, department stores, and prominent women of society pushing green as the new hot color for the season. Balls, gallery exhibitions, and window displays all featured green after Bernays got through with them. The result was that green did indeed become a very popular color for the 1934 season and Lucky Strike kept their pack color and female clientele intact. After his semi-retirement in the 1960s, he worked with the pro-health anti-smoking lawyer John Banzhaf's group, ASH and supported other anti-smoking campaigns.

Water fluoridation

Bernays helped to convince the American public that

water fluoridation Water fluoridation is the controlled adjustment of fluoride to a public water supply solely to reduce tooth decay. Fluoridated water contains fluoride at a level that is effective for preventing cavities; this can occur naturally or by adding ...

was safe and beneficial to human health.

Food

Bernays applied Freud's observations to convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.

Political propaganda

Bernays once engineered a "pancake breakfast" with vaudevillians for

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...

in what is widely considered one of the first overt

publicity stunt In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utilize ...

s for a US president. Bernays's most extreme political propaganda activities were said to be conducted on behalf of the

multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...

United Fruit Company The United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 fro ...

(renamed Chiquita Brands International in 1984) and the U.S. government to facilitate the successful 1954 coup against the democratically elected president of

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

Jacobo Arbenz Guzman Jacobo is both a surname and a given name of Spanish origin. Based on the name Jacob. Notable people with the name include: Surname: * Alfredo Jacobo (born 1982), Olympic breaststroke swimmer from Mexico * Cesar Chavez Jacobo, Dominican profession ...

. Bernays's propaganda (documented in the BBC documentary ''

The Century of the Self ''The Century of the Self'' is a 2002 British television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis. It focuses on the work of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, and PR consultant Edward Bernays. In episode one, Curtis says, "This s ...

''), branding Arbenz as communist, was published in major U.S. media. According to a book review by

John Stauber John Stauber is an American progressive writer. Stauber has co-authored five books about government propaganda, private interests and the public relations industry. His work includes one book about how industry manipulates science ('' Trust Us, ...

and

Sheldon Rampton Sheldon Rampton (born August 4, 1957) is an American editor and author. He was editor of '' PR Watch'', and is the author of several books that criticize the public relations industry and what he sees as other forms of corporate and government pro ...

Larry Tye Larry Tye is an American non-fiction author and journalist known for his biographies of notable Americans including Edward Bernays (1999) Satchel Paige (2009), Robert F. Kennedy (2016) and Joseph McCarthy (2020). From 1986 to 2001, Tye was a repo ...

's biography of Bernays, ''The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & The Birth of PR'', "the term '

banana republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring ...

' actually originated in reference to United Fruit's domination of corrupt governments in Guatemala and other Central American countries."

Hygiene

When Venida, a

hairnet A hairnet, or sometimes simply a net or caul, is a small, often elasticised, fine net worn over long hair to hold it in place. It is worn to keep hair contained. A snood is similar, but a looser fit, and with a much coarser mesh and noticeably t ...

manufacturer, hired Bernays' services, he started a campaign to convince women to grow their hair longer so they would buy more hairnets. Although the campaign failed to influence many women, it convinced government officials to require hairnets for certain jobs. Bernays worked with

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...

for

Ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is ...

-brand bar soap. The campaign successfully convinced people that Ivory soap was medically superior to other soaps. He also promoted soap through sculpting contests and floating contests because the soap floated better than its competitors'. In the 1930s, his

Dixie Cup A paper cup is a disposable cup made out of paper and often lined or coated paper, coated with plastic-coated paper, plastic or wax paper, wax to prevent liquid from leaking out or soaking through the paper. It may be made of paper recycling, re ...

campaign was designed to convince consumers that only

disposable cup A disposable cup is a type of tableware and disposable food packaging. Disposable cup types include paper cups, plastic cups and foam cups. Expanded polystyrene is used to manufacture foam cups, and polypropylene is used to manufacture plasti ...

s were sanitary by linking the imagery of the overflowing cup with subliminal images of vaginas and venereal disease.

Event promotion

In 1920, Bernays successfully hosted the first

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

convention in Atlanta, Georgia. His campaign was considered successful because there was no violence at the convention. His campaign focused on the important contributions of African-Americans to Whites living in the South. He later received an award from the NAACP for his contribution. In October 1929, Bernays was involved in promoting Light's Golden Jubilee. The event, which spanned across several major cities in the U.S., was designed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

's invention of the

light-bulb An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...

(though a form of light-bulb had been simultaneously invented by

Joseph Swan Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for develop ...

). The publicity elements of the Jubilee–including the special issuance of a U.S. postage stamp and Edison's "re-creating" the invention of the light bulb for a nationwide radio audience – provided evidence of Bernays's love for big ideas and "ballyhoo". A follow-up event for the 75th anniversary, produced for

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

by David O. Selznick, was titled ''

Light's Diamond Jubilee ''Light's Diamond Jubilee'' (1954) is a two-hour TV special that aired on October 24, 1954, on all four U.S. television networks of the time, DuMont, CBS, NBC, and ABC. The special won a Primetime Emmy Award for Victor Young for Best Music for ...

'' and broadcast on all four American TV networks on October 24, 1954. Bernays was the publicity director of the

1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchas ...

The arts

In 1913, Bernays secured one of his first consulting contracts. American actor Richard Bennett hired him to defend a play that promoted

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual acti ...

against police interference. Bernays set up a

front organization A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations, secret societies, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy gro ...

called the Medical Review of Reviews Sociological Fund. Although the organization purported to fight

sexually transmitted disease Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...

, its sole purpose was to endorse Bennett's play.. In 1915, to prepare for the

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...

' US tour,

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pat ...

hired Bernays to convince American magazines to publish articles telling readers that

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

is fun to watch.

References

{{Edward Bernays Business-related lists Political campaigns Propaganda in the United States Public relations United States-related lists