Edward Bernays: Biography Of The Publicist Who Invented Propaganda
Surely, it has happened to you more than once: you have ended up buying a product that, in reality, you did not need, but you have succumbed to a mysterious attraction that has impelled you to buy it. The reality is that you have fallen into the networks of propaganda, which the publicist Edward Bernays devised and perfected to unsuspected extremes, to the point that, today, all advertising campaigns are indebted to him.
Who was this visionary of the marketingwhich made a multitude of North American companies earn millions of dollars and got, among other things, that women smoked or that Americans ate bacon for breakfast? In this biography of Edward Bernays we tell you the life and career of the publicist who invented propaganda and public relations, Edward Bernays.
Brief biography of Edward Bernays, pioneer in the manipulation of the unconscious
He was the nephew (twice) of the illustrious Sigmund Freud, and from him he learned the mechanisms of the unconscious. From now on, Bernays understood that these unconscious desires could be manipulated for commercial purposes ; From this idea what we know today as propaganda or advertising was born. And, if today we are immersed in an indisputable consumer society that forces us to buy products that, in truth, we do not need, it is thanks to this visionary publicist who made North American companies earn millions.
Nephew of the great psychoanalyst
Edward Louis Bernays was born in Vienna at the turn of the century, the capital of a crumbling empire that was the European epicenter not only of the arts (the Viennese secession), but also of advances in medicine and psychology. In fact, Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the prestigious psychoanalyst who laid the foundations for the study of the unconscious.
Anna Freud, Edward’s mother, was Sigmund Freud’s sister, effectively making Edward her nephew. But the thing is that, in addition, the psychoanalyst was married to the sister of Edward’s father, so, in addition to being his real uncle, she was his political uncle. Edward was born in November 1891 in Vienna, but his family soon moved to the United States, where Bernays would develop his theory of propaganda and he would be hired by the most powerful companies in the country, and also by high dignitaries.
From Freud, Edward learned firsthand the workings of the human mind; especially, of what the psychoanalyst called the id, that is, the unconscious. Edward felt intensely interested in that remote and hidden part of the brain about which the subject knew hardly anything but which, in reality, impelled him to perform certain acts that, apparently, were meaningless. Bernays had just discovered the link between the unconscious (and, therefore, the most hidden desires and fears of the human being) with consumption, and he soon realized how useful it could be when manipulating the population for the sake of to achieve specific goals.
Bernays and the manipulation of the unconscious
Edward Bernays graduated in Agriculture in 1912, but he knew that his professional path was destined to follow other paths. Letters from his uncle Freud had been reaching him as far as America who, from Vienna, sent him his writings about his findings on the human unconscious.
In 1928, what is probably one of the most influential books of the 20th century came to light: Propaganda, where Bernays describes how to get people to behave in a certain way through linking their emotions with the current product. After the conclusions he reached through the writings of his uncle, Bernays understood that, if he managed to reliably relate those latent and hidden emotions with what he wanted to sell, success was assured. Time showed him that he was right.
The campaign for women’s cigarettes
From then on, the most powerful companies in the United States relied on Bernays’ advice to increase their sales. One of her most famous and successful cases was her campaign to get women to smoke. Until then, smoking was considered an act of “manliness,” and it was frowned upon for women to consume tobacco. One of the largest American tobacco companies wanted to expand its market to the female public, so it hired the services of Bernays
The publicist devised a strategy that was completely successful. First, he hired several women to light up cigarettes at a women’s rights demonstration, unconsciously linking smoking to female emancipation. On the other hand, through large “fees”, he managed to get various films to show glamorous actresses on screen with a cigarette on their lips. With this campaign, Bernays got American women to see the act of smoking as a means to achieve status in society; According to the publicist, it was because women, unconsciously, wanted to “occupy the man’s position,” and cigarettes allowed them to play that role.
A “tradition” taken from the sleeve
Before Bernays arrived in the field of advertising and public relations, the United States had a fairly bland breakfast. As Bernays himself states in an interview, the American breakfast consisted of “coffee, some buns and orange juice.”
However, just a few years later, the “typical” American breakfast had come to contain bacon, which had become an “indispensable” food **for a complete and “balanced” diet. Thus, millions of Americans began to consume bacon for their breakfasts, thinking, thanks to another of Bernays’s propaganda strategies (on this occasion, for the meat companies of the United States), that in this way they transformed their previous frugal breakfast into something much more. more appetizing and, above all, much “healthier”.
The most curious thing about the case is that Bernays managed to ensure that the result of (again) unconscious manipulation was seen as something “typical” of the United States, inseparable from its tradition and the result of many centuries of tradition.
Not only companies hired Bernays’ services to increase their sales. Also in the political sphere, the publicist’s propaganda ideas were raffled off. It was Bernays who got many Americans to enlist in the army, through the famous poster that shows “Uncle Sam” pointing at the viewer and saying that famous I want you for the US Army. Bernays was part of the commission in charge of the propaganda in question; much later, in another of his countless television interviews, he stated that Propaganda was much more powerful if the person doing it played a “paternal” role In fact, with his I want youBernays had a considerable impact on the unconscious of American boys, eager to serve the “father”, that is, the country.
Given his great capacity for conviction, many leaders relied on the advice of Edward Bernays. His manipulations on political matters were indeed authentic propaganda, but, given Goebbles’ use of the word in Nazi Germany, Bernays considered changing the name. Since then, his “propaganda” began to be called “public relations.”
Bernays sincerely believed that these “public relations” were necessary in democratic countries, since they guaranteed a certain “order” in the face of “chaos.” Bernays’ opinions are obviously highly debatable, but what cannot be denied is its enormous influence on the emergence of the consumer society at the beginning of the 20th century and that made its definitive emergence in the middle of the century.
Bernays died in 1995, at the not inconsiderable age of 102. Throughout his life he worked alongside large companies and, through his advertising, he established many of the ideas that, even today, move us without us realizing it. And, ever since he read the works of his uncle Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays was very clear that, if you manage to manipulate the unconscious, you can achieve anything. Both good and bad.
