Edward Louis Bernays And His PR Tactics

The father of Public Relations Edward Louis Bernays (Nov. 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995) was pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda. He was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20^th century by LIFE magazine.

Year 1915: Edward L. Bernays was given a job to write about a Ballet touring America. Dance wasn't his cup of tea since he was never interested in dance or any activity related to it. But despite this, Bernays accepted the work and started working on it. He connected ballet to something which people understand and enjoy. 

To create wide impact of the Ballet on American audience, he defined theme of the Ballet as under:

a.   a novelty in art forms,

b.   a unifying of several arts,

c.    its appeal to special groups,

d.   its direct impact on American’s life style i.e. on products and personalities.

Based on these themes, he developed a four page newsletter covering various aspects, stories and photographs of the Ballet and the performers, their costumes and music composers.

Target audience of his newsletter was 1. Editorial writers of newspapers and magazines, 2. Local event managers 3. other  interested audience and females. 

For example:

a.     the pages targeting female readers received articles on fashion design, costumes and fabric.

b.     Supplements of Sunday editions of newspapers received photographs of the dancers, ballet etc.

Bernays P R tactics resulted in wide coverage of the touring ballet company in media.

Year 1918: Public Relations took the next step towards professionalism as Bernays advised the President of the new country of Czechoslovakia to announce independence on a Monday, rather than on a Sunday to get maximum press coverage.

Year 1923: Bernays published “Crystallizing Public Opinion”.

In this book, he established several public relations principles. He wrote that public relations had these functions to perform:-

a.   To interpret the client to the public, which means promoting the client.

b.   To interpret the public to the client, which means operating the company in such a way as to gain the approval of the public.

Lots of PR <3