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Folks in this thread may find this interesting, a 4 part documentary on Edward Bernays and the history of advertising and PR as we know it today. https://www.y
by deepakkarki 7y ago
Folks in this thread may find this interesting, a 4 part documentary on Edward Bernays and the history of advertising and PR as we know it today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04
From the video description -
"The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.
Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.
His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.
It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world."
- HNLurker2 7y agoFun fact: Bernays grandson is the co founder of Netflix. And you may think what brainwashing are all of these memes by Netflix? (Stephen Bernays Randolph his father)
- anewhnaccount2 7y agoWow. And I suppose they managed to eroticise Netflix itself via "Netflix and chill". Pretty brazen stuff when you think about it.
- raxxorrax 7y agoNetflix content mostly feels empty and shallow, so it seems to not be working correctly. Or maybe they were aiming for this cheap TV ambiance. Or it is working perfectly, since I have a subscription (for now).
- analog31 7y ago>>> He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. I sometimes wonder if the people who are the true targets of advertising, made to want things they don't need, are the people who buy advertising.
- coldtea 7y agoThose people can also do A/B tests, and compare various methods of advertising. And they get their money's worth on customers (e.g. a promotional vlog by an a-lister can suddenly push millions worth of product). So probably not.
- dalore 7y agoa/b tests only work for outcome based advertising. A lot (if not more) of the old world advertising isn't outcome based. It's more about make consumers hear your brand over and over and be associated with things that you think of them automatically.
- analog31 7y agoThe descriptions I've read about a/b testing make it sound a lot like null hypothesis significance testing, which has a well earned reputation in the social sciences. And you have to buy the things that you're testing, either from a vendor, or by employing people who assemble the stuff.
- a123b456c 7y agoAdvertising signals are normally too weak to be detected by standard A/B tests. Additionally, most traditional advertisers do not run A/B tests. Their agencies especially do not run such tests. Source: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=lewis+rao+2015+advertising+&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=lewi...
- otabdeveloper1 7y agoAdvertising hasn't been about 'persuasion' or psychology for a long, long time. Advertising today is mechanical applications of the central limit theorem / law of large numbers to sociological problems.
- raxxorrax 7y agoIs that for reach and penetration and whom to target? Wouldn't know how I would apply that to ads.
- otabdeveloper1 7y agoI fail to grasp what you mean. Reach, penetration and target audiences is like 95% of what modern advertising does. Modern advertising works on simple statistics rules like "people who drink Pepsi might need heartburn medicine" or "people who recently bought home appliances might want to buy another one". These things are simple applications of the CLT. No psychology or manipulation is needed or wanted.
- raxxorrax 7y agoOh, I just wondered if it is indeed used for that purpose and didn't make the jump to questions like that.
- flycaliguy 7y agoCan somebody point me to further reading on this subject please? Specifically in advertising.
- 3xblah 7y ago"PR" was invented by the military. I learned this from someone in PR who was trained in the service during WWII and then went on to work in the "public relations profession" as a civilian. I suspect the military trained Bernays. He may have invented the "profession", but he did not invent PR.
- mushbino 7y agoBernays started Public Relations as an occupation + name in the private sector. In the military it was known as propaganda.
- dalore 7y ago> "PR" was invented by the military. That's a bold claim, with your only supporting evidence some anecdotal claim by some guy you knew who claimed it. If you are refuting the article and making your own bold claim, surely you can offer more evidence then "some guy I know told me"
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 3xblah 7y agoTurow, Joseph (2008), Media Today: An Introduction to Mass Communication, Routledge (New York), at 627, 631 "If you are refuting the article..." The article made no mention of public relations nor Bernays. I was responding to a comment that cited a YouTube description. I am familiar with Curtis' documentaries, including the one in the video. I enjoy them. However, I believe he makes them as art, for entertainment purposes, not as a teaching tool. His comments in interviews seem to support this view.
- gnoppa 7y agoIs watching this documentary still useful after having read Bernays' Propaganda?
- deepakkarki 7y agoI haven't read Propaganda so can't answer your question, but I do think you should watch the first part and see if it adds anything new. The documentary is not much about his work as it is about him and the impact of his work - it's a level meta. So might be worth it.
- slavaukraini 7y agoWow it's crazy to think the world wasn't always like this... and I guess it's even crazier that you can't really imagine a world without adverts using things like celebrity endorsements. It's insane how much effect seemingly minor things can have on society.
- coldtea 7y agoWell, a constant barrage of promotional messages, playing with people's feelings, taking advantage of psychology, hurting their self-worth to hook them (buy these clothes to be like those beautiful people, fat? you need this product, buy this gadget and enter the lifestyle of the persons using it in the ad), embedded covertly in TV, movies, celebrities and openly in tv, billboards, print, webpages, video games, mobile apps, flyers, posters, and so on, is not exactly "minor". We see hundreds of ads every day. Even if we miss each particular product placement, their aggregated core message "buy more stuff" and "your life is not perfect like the people in the ads" registers just fine.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y agoThey are using a core mechanism of humanity though. There where always risk-affine outliers, who developed new techniques, tasted forbidden berries, and thus we copy those who stumbled upon success. It was a good strategy until it was hacked.