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An interesting overview of Edward Bernays' life, work, and life's work cementing his position as the creator of modern commercial propaganda is Larry Tye's _The Father of Spin_. It's the source of a hundred little ingenious anecdotes that demonstrate the imagination behind Bernays' campaigns, but one of the most alarming is that of Beech-nut bacon. Here I quote from one of Bernays' own books, 'Biography of an Idea': "The sales of Beechnut bacon were falling off because people had slimmed down their breakfast to a piece of toast, orange juice and a cup of coffee.[...] Beechnut favoured breakfast habits of a century before, when people started their day with bacon and eggs, doughnuts, pie and coffee. If the trend of breakfasts could be reversed, beechnut, the dominant breakfast bacon, would regain its sales.
Physicians confirmed to me [i.e. Bernays] that heavy breakfasts were scientifically desirable. The body needs food replenishment twelve hours after an evening meal. I enlisted a well-known New York phyisican, Dr A L Goldwater, to write to phyisicians thoughout the country for their opinion on heavy verses light breakfasts. Physicians from all over the country gave overwhelming support to the hearty breakfast.
Six months after widespread publicity on the survey, Bartlett Arkell, president of Beechnut, announced that Beechnut sales of bacon had increased “enormousely in the past half year. Nothing else did it , except the recommendation of American doctors.”/ Bernays recounts this anecdote in such a way as to minimise the appearance that he himself deliberately sought or bought trusted medical opinions to confirm his campaigns: they simply 'confirmed' things to him. But while the Lucky Strike and soap-carving contests he organised often get the most attention - they're beautiful works of creative showmanship and inventive campaigning - quick portraits of his work tend to obscure just how data-driven he actually was. Rare was the PR stunt he pulled without extremely thorough research behind him. It's also traditional to comment that either Ivy Lee or Walter Lippmann were in fact the 'real' fathers of public relations. One of Edward Bernays' most interesting commentators was Jacques Ellul, whose work expands and develops the role of propaganda in mass or atomised society. He's not well-known in the Anglophone sphere because he published in French, but his book 'Propaganda' has been translated into English and, despite first being published in 1962, actually remains shockingly relevant. In his estimation, 'public opinion' was infinitely malleable, and any political or commercial system that answered to public opinion, without recognising just how vulnerable that was to anyone with an agenda and a good means of delivering misinformation, was doomed. Both he and Bernays make excellent reading in the context of modern political advertising and 'populism' i.e. when public opinion is led or actively wanders into dangerous territory. |