We all know that communication can be used to influence and maintain a positive reputation. That is why the saying “communication is key” has been around for so long. But, did you know that the specific form of communication known as public relations (PR) can be traced back to ancient Greek, starting with the classical philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle? They wrote about the art of rhetoric in order to help public speakers persuade the people to agree with their arguments. This was also seen during the British abolitionist movement in the late 19th century, where the party for this movement were using pamphlets, lectures, and books to change the public opinion on the global slave trade.
And as much as we can argue that this is the beginning of public relations, I think it’s better to say that these were moments leading up to what public relations is today. As times have changed, so have we and how we receive information. So, let’s start somewhere simple. What does public relations mean? According to the dictionary: “The professional maintenance of a favourable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person. The state of the relationship between a company or other organization or a famous person with the public.” Going with the dictionary definition, there are two people who could be considered the founder of what PR is today. Ivy Lee, and Edward Bernays. People have spent a long time debating who fathered this new profession. In this article, we’ll break them down for you, so you can decide.
Ivy Lee
Many PR experts get their start in journalism, and that’s exactly where Ivy Lee started. Working at New York America, New York World, and the New York Times, his first obvious PR job was his work with the Rockefeller family. John D. Rockefeller in 1903 was struggling with his company Standard Oil. Due to their negative reaction to strikes that were happening in their mines, the public’s image of the Rockefeller family started to sour. Seeing this, Lee told Rockefeller to interact with the miners in order to boost his reputation among those in the mines, which in turn helped his image with the public.
Doing this gave Lee popularity and he was summoned to write the first press release ever in 1906. This was to cover a major rail crash in Atlantic City which was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Lee’s response to the crash was to invite other journalists to the crash site itself in order to offer select information. Because the press was informed first and it was coming directly from the main source, they were able to have positive coverage.
The reason why people believe that Lee should be considered the father of public relations is because of his ideas that led companies to begin writing press releases. But even if Lee was the one who wrote the first press release, Edward Bernays is the first one to put science behind it.
Edward Bernays
Born in Austria, Bernays’ family moved to the United States when he was a child. As he grew older, he believed that the political propaganda that was used during World War II could be used by corporations to influence public behaviour in a careful way. Through this, he began to build up a science behind public relations. Being the nephew of the world-renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud, Bernays was able to use his uncle’s theories on psychoanalysis along with other sociological theories to create and grow his methods in PR. Bernays’ main theory was that “it would be possible to manipulate people’s behaviour without their even realizing it.” This led to him launching one of his most known public relations campaigns; which was to convince women to smoke. This campaign played on what men desired in a woman, and Bernays promoted that if women smoked instead of eating, they would become thinner. Using photographers, artists, newspapers, and magazines, he promoted thin women as a special type of beauty. Medical officials were even promoting cigarettes over sweets as a way to keep healthy, also telling women that keeping cigarettes with them was a social necessity. All of this contributed to women smoking more, making Bernays’ successful. More corporations realized that the best way to promote products or push people in a certain way was to convince the public it was their idea.
So, we know that in PR, the public’s opinion is the most important thing a company needs in order to sell their product or brand. Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays have proven that persuading public opinion as if it’s their own idea is the best way. No one likes to know that they’ve been manipulated or that they’ve been told to do something they didn’t want to in the first place. When broken down, it seems as if PR is some evil profession that can convince anyone to do anything. The reality of it is that as complicated as human psychology is, human culture isn’t; therefore it’s easier to convince a person they need something they don’t actually need.