Ads, Opinions and Bernays

Well I read the final four readings of the semester, sorry about the lateness of the post. 

In "Engineering Of Consent" by Edward Bernays, he mainly talks about how to communicate with the public with the major issues we have today and how can a public relations person can do to make people aware of what that issue may be to them. Bernays describes a method to create campaigns to make people listen.

In another reading by Bernays "Promoting Lucky Strike Cigarettes to Women in the 1920's", he talks about his time with promoting Lucky Strike cigarettes to women since at that time it was considered a bad idea to women to smoke. The reason for that is because a woman's image would be a bad idea for her since it would look like she's a hussy. Together with Hill, both campaigned for women's rights to smoke in public and their "torches of freedom". In the end it was successful but then the question of the branding was not in sync with fashion. Bernays suggested the color green and then it became a sensation with now every women wearing green as a fashion.

In "Public Opinion and The Phantom Public" by Walter Lippmann, he talks about what people are thinking when looking at any advertisements and what goes through the public opinion. He also describes what the public does as one when in anger or any other feeling when talking about whatever campaign affects them.

Finally in the last reading we see what Prof. Ewen's visit to Bernays was like in "Visiting Edward Bernays" by Stuart Ewen. Ewen talk about his visit to Bernays' house and learns that public relations was about fashioning and projecting credible renditions of reality itself. He visited his house and was amazed at all the books that Bernays wrote over the years and became fascinated. They had a really long interview and it was full of surprises and both had a nice time. After the interview, he felt satisfied and strange happenings happen months after his interview. In the end, Bernays was sad about today's public relations and said that it lost its way.

The most interesting reading was the last reading with Ewen's meeting with Bernays. Who wouldn't want to meet a legend of any kind especially at 99 years old. The whole thing with images and reality to me I find true as well.