In February 2024 this website crashed for no apparent reason. Despite using professionals at GoDaddy.com it was impossible to restore anything after October 2021 (over 100 posts). I do have many of those post in draft form (no final edit or photos) and I have decided to repost them in that manner. I apologize for typos and other errors. How do I feel about losing all of my original work? Life goes on.
I love photography, and when I was working, it wasn’t uncommon for me to buy a new camera. I would get hyped up by some YouTube influencer who would excitedly tell their audience that the new camera changed their life because of some silly extra feature. Despite knowing better, I would get caught up in the emotional frenzy and place my order.
A dear friend of mine likes to travel and wears a special travel vest with hidden pockets when she goes here and there. She wanted to buy a jacket with the same features but couldn’t. However, she became so caught up in the travel excitement that she bought a travel vest similar to her old one but in a different color. She knew this new vest offered no advantages from her old one; she couldn’t help herself.
I read an article about Stanley insulated cups. Stanley has been around for over 100 years. They make a good product, but I would hardly call them trendy. However, they painted their mugs in new colors and added a little PR, and the cups became a scarce and highly desirable product. I watched a video of pre-teen girls squealing joyfully after getting a Christmas Stanley cup. I checked Amazon, and sellers are selling these cups at over double their retail price. Ecstasy over an insulated cup?
If I mentioned the name Sigmund Freud, everyone would recognize it, and many would know that he is considered the father of Psychoanalysis. Although a number of his conclusions have fallen out of favor, his basic concepts have served as a foundation for how we think about psychology and psychotherapy. He is one of the most influential individuals of the 20th century.
However, his nephew, neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist, had a far more significant impact on the world. His techniques affect every one of us daily. Freud’s nephew had an undergraduate degree in agriculture but was interested in his uncle’s work. He used psychological manipulation that was so powerful that it changed the world. His name was Edward Bernays, and you possibly never heard of him, but you need to know about him.
Edward Bernays was born in 1891 in Austria-Hungary and migrated to the US as a child. His mother was Freud’s sister, and his father was the brother of Freud’s wife. Edward came from a prominent family. Despite getting a degree in agriculture, his first jobs were in journalism, and soon, he was writing press releases for the famous while offering suggestions to boost their popularity. For instance, Enrico Caruso was supremely talented, but Bernays instructed him to be more dramatic in his presentation, which catapulted him to superstardom.
The US entered World War I in 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson asked Bernays to be part of a propaganda committee to promote US interests during the war. American citizens needed to support the war effort. Wilson’s propaganda group created a crafty message that Wilson was bringing democracy to Europe and that he was the great liberator. Post-war, Bernays accompanied Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference and was struck by the thousands of Parisians who came out to offer their adoration of Wilson. He became acutely impressed with the power of propaganda and how easily people could be manipulated. He saw an opportunity but realized he needed to change things a bit. He could never open up a propaganda firm, as that term had negative connotations. What did Bernay’s do? He changed the term propaganda to public relations. Edward Bernays created an entire industry in that one move.
There have always been ways to get people to buy stuff, but before Bernays, most advertisements talked about the benefits of a product. This chair was more comfortable, or that cold cream was better at removing makeup. The brilliance of Bernays was that he took the work from Uncle Sigmund and applied it to advertising. He knew it didn’t make any difference if a product was better than another or if you even needed a product. He understood that it was more important for the potential buyer to believe in the product and to identify with it. It was the primitive emotional connection that mattered. Have you ever had a crush on someone and excused all sorts of terrible behavior only to realize they were jerks when the crush faded? That is an example of a primitive emotional connection.
Bernays knew that people could easily be manipulated. He publicly stated that the general population was “dumb,” “stupid,” “irrational,” and “sheep.” His goal was to manipulate their subconscious and impact their desires. He was pro-America, but he felt that the consensus of the people should not run a society. Instead, he strongly felt that a small group of intellectuals should rule a nation and that propaganda could then be used to make the masses buy into this governance and believe that they were part of the decision-making process. Using his techniques, Bernays became known internationally among the elite and wealthy. He advised at least four American presidents and many entertainers and corporate leaders. Let’s take a look at just a few of his accomplishments.
In 1918, Edward Bernays was contacted by a watch company asking him to persuade men to wear wristwatches. Wristwatches were considered feminine jewelry, and men typically wore pocket watches. Bernays convinced the US Army that using a pocket watch could be dangerous as men often lit a match to see the watch’s face at night, revealing their position. The Army started to issue wristwatches to soldiers, and what was considered feminine suddenly became manly.
In the early 1900s, bacon fell out of favor as a breakfast food because tastes shifted to lighter breakfast fare, like cereal, toast, and coffee. The Beech-Nut Packing Company needed help figuring out how to boost their falling bacon sales, so they consulted with Edward Bernays. He felt he needed to find an authority that people would trust and convince them to change their eating habits. But how would he do this? He asked his agency’s doctor if he felt that having a hearty breakfast was good. His doctor said sure. Bernays then had that doctor send out a survey to other doctors with the same question. Many thought it was a good idea. However, this was purely opinion. Their response was based on the survey asking a leading question and not backed by any data. Bernays released this information to the printed press and radio while incorporating it in ads, stating that 4 out of 5 doctors agree that having a hearty breakfast is essential. The ads featured pictures of bacon and eggs, and people subconsciously connected the doctors’ advice with bacon. People were eating bacon for breakfast again, and profits soared.
By the mid-1920s, the automobile market was saturated. Everyone who wanted or needed a car had one. The automotive industry hired Edward Bernays to boost sales. Encouraging families to have two vehicles would double car sales, but in those days, that option was too expensive for the average buyer. Edward had psychology on his side, and he knew the way to increase sales was to increase irrational desire. A car is a box on wheels, but he wondered if it could be marketed as something else. His idea was to turn a car into a symbol of male virility, and he suggested that cars be made longer and sportier. He also encouraged small yearly changes in a car’s body and color (a precursor to planned obsolescence). His initial work was with GM, but he also worked for other car manufacturers. Car sales took off. As a side note, I bought a brand new Mustang GT convertible with a manual transmission when I finished my residency. It was a fun car, but now I know why I bought it.
Cigarette smoking was a masculine habit in the early part of the 20th century, and women who openly smoked were considered to be low-class and trashy. This posed a problem for cigarette manufacturers as they saw that they could double their profits if they could convince women to smoke. This was a seemingly impossible task considering how negatively the general population viewed women smoking. However, all that changed in 1929 at the New York City Easter Parade. A group of young, fashionably dressed debutantes broke into the parade and defiantly lit up cigarettes. This action was so newsworthy that their story appeared nationally in newspapers and magazines. These fashionable women claimed their cigarettes were “torches of freedom,” a symbol of women’s rights. Suddenly, it became cool for women to smoke. Was their actions due to an actual social protest? It would seem so, but it was all an act. Edward Bernays hired them to do it. Who hired Mr. B? Lucky Strike, a popular cigarette brand. He also used his skills and connections from his days in the press to ensure the event was amply covered in the media. Interestingly, this same approach was used in 1968 when Virginia Slims pushed the tagline, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” We believe that we are more sophisticated than the generation before us, but the same schtick that got women smoking in 1929 got them to smoke more in 1968.
In the 1930s, Mr. Bernays was contacted by the makers of Dixie Cups. They wanted people to use more of their disposable products. He again used the power of psychology to boost sales. He created the Committee for the Study and Promotion of the Sanitary Dispensing of Food and Drink and ran campaigns on how unsanitary regular glasses were. Included in the ads were subliminal messages with sexual content and inferences that venereal disease were spread by regular glassware. More recently, a similar technique was used to promote paper towels in public bathrooms by releasing selective studies showing that hand dryers spread airborne fecal bacteria. In reality, paper towels and hand dryers are similarly sanitary, but people bought the manipulation and grab for the towels.
Lucky Strike and Edward Bernays got women smoking. However, they were reaping fewer sales than they wanted. Lucky Strike’s packaging was dark green in those days, and that color clashed with women’s outfits. Edward Bernays was consulted on what to do. His first suggestion was to change the packaging color, which was rejected as the company had invested in green as part of its branding. Bernays came up with a brilliant solution. In 1934, he created the Green Ball. Officially hosted by New York society as a charity event, the ball was covertly funded by The American Tobacco Company (owners of the Lucky Strike brand). Bernay used his influence to bring movie stars and other notables to the event. Famous intellectuals read poems and gave speeches on the color green, and the ball featured artwork and other treasures, all in green. Naturally, the fashionable guests wore green. Edward Bernays used his skill and contact list to make sure that the ball was publicized nationally, and he created quite a buzz even before the event happened. Green was no longer out for women’s fashion; it was in, and Lucky Strike cigarette packs no longer clashed with dresses.
The United Fruit Company (Now Chiquita Brands International) controlled vast areas of land in Central America. They were known for cruelly treating native employees and their prejudicial practices. Their business siphoned off the wealth of countries, which caused resentment among local citizens. In 1951, Jacobo Arbenz was democratically elected as President of Guatemala. Arbenz was a nationalist who wanted to return Guatemala’s resources to Guatemalans. He was progressive and not a Communist. United Fruit wanted to remove him from office and replace him with a president sympathetic to United Fruit’s business practices. They hired Edward Bernays, who launched a psychological campaign to discredit Arbenz. Bernay’s main thrust was to ruin Arbenz by dishonestly claiming he was a Communist. Carefully created articles were written in US papers and magazines, and selective interviews with Guatemalan leaders opposed to Arbenz were conducted. Bernays convinced the American people that Arbenz was dangerous to democracy and potentially a threat to the US. The US government covertly launched a coup, and in 1954, Arbenz was ousted. Castillo Armas was sympathetic to the needs of United Fruit. He became dictator of Guatemala and reversed the social reforms that Arbenz initiated. His rule led to decades of civil war and the genocide of the Maya people.
The above are just some ways that Edward Bernays impacted the world. Some of his actions, such as getting men to wear wristwatches, are pretty innocent. Others, like encouraging women to smoke or helping overthrow an elected Guatemalan government, are more sinister. His campaigns show how easily the general population could be manipulated. Remember, he categorized the average citizen as stupid, dumb, irrational, sheep, and incapable of self-governance. His success bolstered his beliefs.
He was not the first person to use psychological manipulation to control others. He was a propagandist, and many other propagandists preceded him. However, he is credited as the Father of Public Relations, whose psychological manipulation continues to impact us to this very day. Some say he is the father of lies, as he often manipulated data and facts to reach his goal.
The next time you believe the content of a political attack or want to replace a major appliance because it’s the wrong color, or buy an expensive shampoo because you think that your hair will look like the actor in a commercial, think about Edward Bernays and remember what he thought about you.
Peace
Mike