However, digging deeper, I realized that Bernays' marketing is almost nothing like what we do every day at the agency. This partly has to do with the differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing , a topic for another article. With my conscience at ease, I became equally fascinated and horrified by Edward Bernays's ingenuity. Here's what I found.
Marketing is the child of psychology. Or at least its israel mobile database nephew. Indeed, that was Sigmund Freud's Edward Barnays. Although Bernays' name may not resonate as much as his uncle's, the impact he had on society was equally poignant. Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, was responsible for taking Freud's theories on human behavior and the mind to help sell more products. In doing so, he forever changed the way marketing was done.
Marketing by Edward Bernays
Before Bernays, marketing was largely about showing the practical virtues of a product. He pioneered the notion that to sell anything (from a brand to a public figure), it was best to link it to people’s deepest desires and fears. Bernays wrote, “People are seldom conscious of the real reasons that motivate their conduct… We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested: largely by men we have never heard of.