The man who taught women to smoke, or the secret of Edward Bernays

In 1929, in New York, a man named Edward Bernays organized a campaign based on deception to benefit the Lucky Strike tobacco company.

Bernays was determined to manipulate society by hiding his true intentions from people.

So who was Edward Bernays really? He is known as a leading figure in the history of public relations and marketing.

Bernays was not only the nephew of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, but also a leading manipulator of his time. He also worked to increase sales of the company's tobacco products by signing a contract with Lucky Strike.

We can see that the deceptive methods used by Bernays were extremely effective, not only in the modern West, but also in the situation of women in some Muslim countries .

Let's look at American society in the early 20th century. At that time, women smoking cigarettes in public was frowned upon, and in some places even banned. At that time, the smoking rate among American women was very low - about 5%.

In such a situation, George Washington Hill, the head of the American Tobacco Company, knew well that there was a lot of profit to be made by spreading the habit of smoking among women. To this end, he entered into a contract with the cunning Bernays.

After consulting with Sigmund Freud and other psychologists, Bernays came up with a very strange but effective project. She arranged for a group of feminist women to participate in the traditional Easter march of 1929. The feminists were to take cigarettes out of their stockings and light them as they marched.

The main idea of the project was interpreted as follows:

Women in America are oppressed by men, their husbands are restricted. Cigarettes are a symbol of the fight against oppression. The lit cigarettes in their hands are a torch of freedom.

Bernays had also made arrangements with journalists in advance. They were to cover the event and present smoking as a symbol of freedom.

And so it happened: the campaign was so successful that in 1923, cigarette smoking among women was around 5%, in 1929 it increased to 12%, and a few years later to 35%. Bernays recoded women's smoking as "women's freedom." In society and in the media, "smoking is a symbol of freedom." With this pretext, Lucky Strike sales soared.

Imagine what would happen if this cunning Bernays went out in public and said, "If women started smoking, our company would benefit greatly. So I appeal to all women - start smoking." Of course, he would be laughed at and criticized. After all, it was true. But Bernays, the liar, achieved his goal by turning the cigarette into a symbol of freedom.

It has always been like this: corrupters, posing as reformers, have deceived the simple-minded with their attractive speeches, spreading debauchery and immorality. And they themselves have tried to make a small profit from this . Let us be careful!