Number 27 of 52 Compelling Communicators: Edward Bernays
July 08, 2013
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| Edward Bernays |
You may not like my choice of Edward Bernays
as a compelling communicator. This is the man who has been called the “master
of spin” and propadanda. He was referred to in his 1995 obituary as the “father
of public relations”, something I am certain he orchestrated.
I wanted to profile Mr. Bernays, for those who don’t know his story, to illustrate how important it is to be a discerning consumer of “compelling communicators”. They are amazing communicators who manipulate and we need to be wise to their ways. There has never been a better time to weed out the bad actors. As much as it can be a forum to perpetuate misinformation, social media has provided an excellent forum for exposing untruths and researching a variety of perspectives.
I wanted to profile Mr. Bernays, for those who don’t know his story, to illustrate how important it is to be a discerning consumer of “compelling communicators”. They are amazing communicators who manipulate and we need to be wise to their ways. There has never been a better time to weed out the bad actors. As much as it can be a forum to perpetuate misinformation, social media has provided an excellent forum for exposing untruths and researching a variety of perspectives.
I won’t give you a full profile of Edward
Bernays, you can Google him for the entire intriguing story of his Freudian
approach to getting women to smoke, make Ivory Soap popular or get certain
people elected. He actually drew a correlation that smoking gave women a
phallic symbol and men were so freaked out by the penis metaphor they were
subconsciously stopping women from smoking. He then used that to launch his
1929 “Torches of Freedom” campaign and it worked. Go figure.
What I want to share is this man’s long
lasting ability to have people still eating bacon and eggs for breakfast from
his campaign in the early 20’s.
Here is a clip from a much older Edward Bernays
sharing the success of that campaign.
He was the master of getting the third party
testimonial. In this case getting 5,000 physicians to support the value of
hearty breakfast when most people were eating a light meal. I am not totally
confident the 5,000 doctors did support this but he did have another doctor
write to them. Suspicious mind.
This method of establishing credibility for a
specific point of view is still used extensively. Chocolate is good for you.
Chocolate is bad for you. Bon Appetit magazine was so stymied by the varied
research, they did a comprehensive study of the studies.
They wrapped up with two papers that said chocolate could make you thinner and it
makes snails smarter. After looking at all the evidence, I am going with the
ones that give me permission to indulge…and feel good about it. And that makes
about as much sense as me being a skinny snail leaving the scent of cocoa in my
trail.
My point here is to highlight that part of
being a compelling communicator is having good, credible content that can be
substantiated. Next time you see or hear a reference to a study or a statistic,
check the sources and look for the opposing points of view.
By the way, Bernays was wise enough to become
an opponent of smoking in the 60’s and said if he knew then what he did in
1928, he would never have taken on the tobacco business.
He lived to be 103.
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