For the past week, I’ve sent you emails asking you to consider that quote from Margaret Mead, US anthropologist & popularizer of anthropology (1901 - 1978):
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Quite an inspiring quote, isn’t it? What if we edit it to read:
“Never doubt that a small group can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Today, we begin a look at public relations over several weeks. It is part of the DEEP Marketing series on psychology, sociology, and economics that flow together as marketing. And much of it is taken from Adam Curtis’ excellent four-hour political science series called Century of The Self. (And the black-framed images with captions come from Despair.com, which mocks Successories corporate motivational products.)
What’s the connection between public relations and psychology or sociology?
Sigmund Freud.
It’s his ideas that drove public relations
which drove advertising:
It begins with Freud finding the power of people in large groups to be absolutely frightening …
Sigmund Freud puts forth his new theory about human nature where he reveals his discoverry that there are primitive forces in all people. If not controlled, these forces lead people and societies to chaos and destruction.
This scared the small group that controlled the world. (Since this small group included the royal families and the rich individuals, you conspiracy theorists concerned about the Rothschilds and Rockefellers may be on to something after all.)
Thus, these forces are dangerous and need to be repressed by society. The horror of World War I, which unleashed these forces, confirms his findings.
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Edward Bernays was Freud’s American nephew and founder of public relations, which influenced advertising. He was the first to take Freud’s ideas and use them to manipulate the masses: showing corporations how to make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires. From this came a new political idea on how to control the masses: by satisfying people’s inner desires, one made them happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self, which has come to dominate our world today. |
We’ll extract this wisdom so you can understand how public relations has bled into nearly all messages you see around you, from obvious paid advertising from less obvious news reports and even Hollywood movies.
Bernays begins in a mighty way when he’s hired to promote the US effort in World War I: “Bringing democracy to the world” then at the post-war peace conference” “Make the world safe for democracy.”
His success in winning over the European masses to a political idea inspired him to apply his propaganda techniques to peace: American advertising. Since the Germans had ruined the term “propaganda,” he found another word: “public relations.” His purpose: to find a way to manage and alter the way the American masses thought and felt. Or more bluntly, to make money manipulating the unconscious.
He based this on there being a lot more going on in the individual and in groups than just information to drive behavior. His conclusion: you need to find devices that play to people’s irrational emotions. Prior to Bernays, both governments and businesses assumed you present the rational argument for supporting policies or buying products.
His early successes included: getting women to smoke when it was taboo for them. This took place at the same place women were fighting for the right to vote.
How did he change the social standard
of the entire nation?
His cigarette manufacturing client wanted to boost sales. And half of the market sat untapped: women. Bernays went to work:
First, he hired a psychoanalyst who told him cigarettes represented freedom from male restriction and smoking symbolized women regaining their power and independence.
He then got a group of women to march in the Easter Day Parade.
On his signal, they would bring out and light up hidden cigarettes — an absolutely shocking public act!
He told the press he gathered for this that the women were marching for the right to vote and their cigarettes were “torches of freedom.”
Note:
- how he finds a psychological hot button, freedom from social restriction …
- then ties it to a core American political ideology, freedom …
- promotes it in a controversial public act that defies social standards by shifting them higher to the women’s new ideal standard of freedom …
- and wraps it in a three-word slogan that encompasses freedom … and
- connects it to a huge issue of the day, the then-current women’s struggle for the right to vote
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Result, he creates an iron-clad argument for women to smoke. After all, who in America can argue against half the population standing up for their freedom? And he proves you could create irrational (and absolutely deadly) behavior by linking them to people’s irrational emotions and feelings. All this to change then current beliefs and social standards … for a deadly commercial product. And the industry continued to link emotions and feelings: Smoking = freedom |
If you want an example other than everyone’s favorite punching bag, look at our consumer culture and status goods and the link between irrational (and financial deadly) behavior and irrational emotions and feelings:
Owning a Lexus or Mercedes Benz = feeling rich
Owning a Louis Vuitton or Gucci bag = feeling rich
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Yet, how do most people acquire these symbols of wealth? By driving themselves away from wealth and riches by going into debt with a high-interest car loan or credit card charge. |
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Now, if this was done in the earliest unrefined days of public relations, imagine what people believe today with 90 years of professional tweaking and refining? Imagine what you believe today?
Truly, how much of what you believe:
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About the environment and global warming …
About the crime rate, poverty rate, and other social indicators … About gross domestic product, national debt, average income per person, unemployment rate and other economic measurements … About healthcare reform, financial reform, the upcoming climate and energy reform, and other political measures … In spiritual matters … … how much of it is true, and how much has been manufactured to advance an agenda to boost profit or power, perhaps as deadly as hooking half the adult population into a deadly addiction? |
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As I said in my recent email to you, It’s even worse than the conspiracy theorists claim!
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NEXT TIME: We witness the rise of American consumerism, an entire retail infrastructure, and planned obsolesence to address manufacturers’ age-old problem of overproduction … … as we continue to draw back the curtain in our look at public relations. Find out next time as we continue to chart the underlying currents of psychology, sociology, and economics that flow together as marketing. In DEEP MARKETING. |
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Have questions, comments, thoughts, and opinions?
I’ll answer them directly and promptly:
1. Share them below
2. Send them to me privately if you prefer privacy (bill@rippermarketing.com)
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