NPR ran a great story this morning about Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freund, and widely considered the father of modern-day Public Relations.
His PR tactics often relied on third-party authorities to (in some cases unwittingly) shape public opinion. He's credited with redefining the "American breakfast"--from coffee and toast to bacon and eggs--thanks to a survey of 5000 physicians, who overwhelmingly recommended a "hearty" breakfast over a light breakfast. Of course, those polled were seemingly not given any definition of "hearty," and so Bernays devised one himself. Presumably, the results might have been quite different if the docs had been asked about "greasy, cholesterol-laden" breakfasts, which is an equally apt descriptor of the all-American fare Bernays sought to promote.
Effective? No doubt. Manipulative? Absolutely. Dangerous? Potentially. The NPR story notes that Hitler's chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels kept Bernays' books on his shelf. Bernays feared that his work would lead to "impropaganda," even as he recruited opera singers to claim in ads that smoking soothed their voices and aided digestion.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Friday, April 15, 2005
Does your current agency stink?
From today's Marketing Sherpa dispatch:
2. Briefs: Which Ad Agencies are Bad? + New B-to-B Award
15-minute Questionnaire: Grade Ad AgenciesAdweek and JWT have teamed to research industry perceptions of ad agency performance. (In other words, does your agency stink or not?) You can take the questionnaire online at the link below. Results will be published in Adweek's May 2nd issue:http://ad.vnh10.net/r/?ZXU=151999&ZXD=25493857
In Firefox, I consistently got a timeout error. Later in the day, using IE, I arrived at a page that told me the survey had been closed. I have little doubt that the server was either overwhelmed by traffic and/or the response from disgruntled clients was so great that they promptly collected enough data and called it a day. Or, perhaps the folks at Sherpa simply disseminated info that was dated--if true, an unfortunate oversight committed by the gurus of email marketing.
2. Briefs: Which Ad Agencies are Bad? + New B-to-B Award
15-minute Questionnaire: Grade Ad AgenciesAdweek and JWT have teamed to research industry perceptions of ad agency performance. (In other words, does your agency stink or not?) You can take the questionnaire online at the link below. Results will be published in Adweek's May 2nd issue:http://ad.vnh10.net/r/?ZXU=151999&ZXD=25493857
In Firefox, I consistently got a timeout error. Later in the day, using IE, I arrived at a page that told me the survey had been closed. I have little doubt that the server was either overwhelmed by traffic and/or the response from disgruntled clients was so great that they promptly collected enough data and called it a day. Or, perhaps the folks at Sherpa simply disseminated info that was dated--if true, an unfortunate oversight committed by the gurus of email marketing.
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