Edward Bernays — The Father of PR

Edward Bernays is con­sidered “the fath­er of PR.”

Bernays is cred­ited with pion­eer­ing many tech­niques in the field of pub­lic rela­tions. He was among the first to use psy­cho­logy and oth­er social sci­ences to design and imple­ment pub­lic rela­tions campaigns.

But Bernays was both cel­eb­rated and criticised.

Here we go:

Edward Bernays: The Father of PR

The Father of PR: Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays (1891 – 1995) is con­sidered the fath­er of pub­lic rela­tions (PR). His uncle was the fam­ous psy­cho­lo­gist Sigmund Freud, and Bernays, too, was inter­ested in beha­vi­our­al psy­cho­logy. ¹Edward Bernays. (2023, November 13). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​E​d​w​a​r​d​_​B​e​r​n​ays ²Olasky, M. (1984). Retrospective: Bernays’ doc­trine of pub­lic opin­ion. Public Relations Review, 10, 3 – 12. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​S​0​3​6​3​-​8​1​1​1​(​8​4​)​8​0​088 – 0

Edward Bernays’ wife, Doris Fleischmann, was also a PR con­sult­ant who sig­ni­fic­antly con­trib­uted to the PR industry.

Bernays cer­tainly was some­thing of a char­ac­ter: His most fam­ous book is titled “Propaganda” — in which he out­lined how to man­age the per­cep­tions of crowds, much like mod­ern Niccolo Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. ³Propaganda. (2023, November 10). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​P​r​o​p​a​g​a​n​d​a​_​(​b​ook)

“The con­scious and intel­li­gent manip­u­la­tion of the organ­ised habits and opin­ions of the masses is an import­ant ele­ment in demo­crat­ic soci­ety. Those who manip­u­late this unseen mech­an­ism of soci­ety con­sti­tute an invis­ible gov­ern­ment which is the true rul­ing power of our coun­try.”
Source: Propaganda ⁴Bernays, E. L. (1928). Propaganda. New York, NY: Horace Liveright.

PR Case Study: Torches of Freedom

When help­ing Lucky Strike, Bernays real­ised that cigar­ette smoking was mostly a male habit. From a busi­ness per­spect­ive, there was a golden oppor­tun­ity to add half the pop­u­la­tion to Lucky Strike’s list of poten­tial customers. 

No one had done this suc­cess­fully, not because no one ever had that idea, but because it was a tough nut to crack. But Edward Bernays suc­ceeded by tap­ping into anoth­er pre­vail­ing trend in soci­ety: The eman­cip­a­tion of women. 

Bernays posi­tioned cigar­ettes for women as “Torches of Freedom.” He placed the idea in art­icles, news­pa­pers, celebrity endorse­ments, and events. He planted the pub­lic per­cep­tion of women smoking not because it was enjoy­able but as a sym­bol of female independence.

PR Case Study: Eggs and Bacon

Have you ever had eggs and bacon for break­fast at a hotel? Well, you can thank Bernays for that idea.

Another PR legend is how Bernays helped the farm­ing industry con­vince people to eat more eggs and bacon. To do this, he wanted to change people’s per­cep­tions of when it’s okay to eat eggs and bacon.

Bernays cooper­ated with food sci­ent­ists to estab­lish that eggs and bacon should be part of a healthy break­fast for every American. And to mani­fest this, he col­lab­or­ated with chains of hotels to have them serve eggs and bacon for break­fast. ⁵Later in life, Bernays became a veget­ari­an and advoc­ated for a meat­less diet, which was unusu­al at the time, espe­cially giv­en his work pro­mot­ing products like bacon.

Learn more: Edward Bernays — The Father of PR

Edward Bernays, Psychological Theories, and Mass Persuasion

Edward Bernays, often called the “fath­er of pub­lic rela­tions,” was highly influ­en­tial in devel­op­ing mod­ern pub­lic rela­tions and pro­pa­ganda tech­niques. Born in 1891 in Vienna, Austria, Bernays was a neph­ew of Sigmund Freud, the fam­ous psy­cho­ana­lyst. His con­nec­tion to Freud sig­ni­fic­antly influ­enced his work in pub­lic rela­tions, as he applied psy­cho­lo­gic­al the­or­ies to the field. ⁶Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s neph­ew. His moth­er was Freud’s sis­ter, and his fath­er was the broth­er of Freud’s wife. This famili­al con­nec­tion cer­tainly means that Bernays was aware of Freud’s … Continue read­ing

Edward Bernays’ wife, Doris Fleischmann, was also a PR con­sult­ant who sig­ni­fic­antly con­trib­uted to the PR industry. ⁷Doris Fleischman is not con­nec­ted to the pub­lic rela­tions agency FleishmanHillard. FleishmanHillard is a glob­al PR agency foun­ded in 1946 by Alfred Fleishman and Robert Hillard in St. Louis, … Continue read­ing

“Doris Fleischman’s work as a pub­lic rela­tions con­sult­ant has received scant recog­ni­tion, des­pite her sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tions to the field and her equal part­ner­ship with her hus­band, Edward L. Bernays.”
Source: Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly ⁸Henry, S. (1997). Anonymous In Her Own Name: Public Relations Pioneer Doris E. Fleischman. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 23, 50 – 62. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​8​0​/​0​0​9​4​7​6​7​9​.​1​9​9​7​.​1​2​0​6​2​467

Bernays began his career in the U.S. by pro­mot­ing World War I bonds and then worked in the Woodrow Wilson admin­is­tra­tion on the Committee on Public Information, a sig­ni­fic­ant exper­i­ence that shaped his under­stand­ing of mass per­sua­sion. ⁹During World War I, Bernays worked for the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), effect­ively serving as a pro­pa­gand­ist. He applied tech­niques he later termed “engin­eer­ing con­sent” to … Continue read­ing

Bernays authored sev­er­al influ­en­tial books, includ­ing “Crystallizing Public Opinion” (1923) and “Propaganda” (1928), in which he laid out his the­or­ies about pub­lic rela­tions and the role of what he called the “engin­eer­ing of con­sent” in a demo­crat­ic soci­ety. ¹⁰Bernays, E. L. (1928). Propaganda. New York, NY: Horace Liveright. ¹¹Bernays, E. L. (1923). Crystallizing pub­lic opin­ion. New York, NY: Boni and Liveright.

Bernays: Celebrated and Criticized

His work sig­ni­fic­antly influ­enced how cor­por­a­tions inter­act with the pub­lic, shap­ing mod­ern mar­ket­ing, advert­ising, and pub­lic rela­tions strategies.

While Bernays is cel­eb­rated for his innov­a­tions, he is also cri­ti­cised for manip­u­lat­ing pub­lic opin­ion and pro­mot­ing cor­por­ate and polit­ic­al interests under the guise of object­ive inform­a­tion. His tech­niques have been scru­tin­ized for eth­ic­al implic­a­tions, espe­cially in how they can be used to sway pub­lic opin­ion without the pub­lic’s aware­ness of the manipulation.

One of his most not­able cam­paigns was for the American Tobacco Company in the 1920s, where he helped to break the social taboo against women smoking in pub­lic. This cam­paign, known as the “Torches of Freedom,” is often cited as a clas­sic example of using psy­cho­lo­gic­al prin­ciples in PR. But it’s also dif­fi­cult to dis­cern how suc­cess­ful the cam­paign was:

“The 1929 ‘Torches of Freedom’ March was staged, but the news medi­a’s response to it was not nearly as cel­eb­rat­ory as Bernays claimed, and its impact was likely nev­er as extens­ive or per­suas­ive as some have sug­ges­ted.”
Source: American Journalism ¹²Murphree, V. (2015). Edward Bernays’s 1929 “Torches of Freedom” March: Myths and Historical Significance. American Journalism, 32, 258 — 281. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​8​0​/​0​8​8​2​1​1​2​7​.​2​0​1​5​.​1​0​6​4​681

Bernays passed away in 1995, but his influ­ence on the fields of advert­ising, mar­ket­ing, and pub­lic rela­tions remains pro­found and rel­ev­ant in the under­stand­ing of media and com­mu­nic­a­tion in soci­ety. ¹³Bernays lived to be 103 years old, a not­able lifespan that spanned sig­ni­fic­ant his­tor­ic­al peri­ods and saw the evol­u­tion of the fields he influ­enced pro­foundly.

PR Resource: Notable PR Professionals

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Notable PR Contributors

• Edward Bernays — The Father of PR
• Ivy Lee and the First Press Release
• P.T. Barnum: “There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity”
• Walter Lippmann: Public Opinion and Perception Management
• John Dewey and the ‘P’ in Public Relations
• Marshall McLuhan: “The Medium is the Message”
• Leon Festinger — The Psychologist Behind Cognitive Dissonance
• Shep Gordon: “Make Parents Angry”

It’s noted that the gender bias is appar­ent here. I’m cur­rently research­ing a more bal­anced list.

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PR Resource: Fundamental Approaches to PR

Approaches To Public Relations

There are three schol­arly approaches to pub­lic rela­tions (PR):

The Excellence Approach. This pub­lic rela­tions approach focuses on object­ives and cor­por­ate value cre­ation. The under­ly­ing motiv­a­tion behind the the­ory was that pub­lic rela­tions were mainly a vari­ety of tac­tic­al tools that des­per­ately needed a man­age­ment the­ory to work well in a soph­ist­ic­ated organ­isa­tion.

Notable men­tions: James E. Grunig, Larissa A. Grunig

The Rhetorical Approach. This pub­lic rela­tions approach stems from ideas dat­ing back to ancient Greece. It’s a psy­cho­lo­gic­al the­ory of how com­mu­nic­a­tion struc­tures human cul­ture by shap­ing human minds. The rhet­or­ic­al approach is prac­tic­al and lacks mor­al judg­ment.

Notable men­tions: Edward Bernays, The Toronto School of Communication Theory, Robert Heath

The Critical Approach. This pub­lic rela­tions approach is deeply rooted in the­or­ies of soci­et­al power dynam­ics. Power is seen as a means of exert­ing dom­in­ance, manip­u­la­tion, and oppres­sion. The crit­ic­al approach bor­rows many ideas from the rhet­or­ic­al approach by pla­cing them in mor­al frame­works.

Notable men­tions: Walter Lippmann, Noam Chomsky

Read also: 3 PR Approaches: Excellence, Rhetorical, and Critical