Smoking the shadow
Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2025 5:01 am
In 1929, Washington Hill hired Edward Bernays to market women to smoke cigarettes. Bernays went to work with his uncle’s theories in mind. Since smoking was considered an appetite suppressant, and thinness was fashionable, Bernays designed a campaign that would appeal to women’s unconscious fear of gaining weight. In the ads, slim, pretty women were haunted by the shadow of an obese future version. The tagline read: “When tempted, grab a Lucky instead of candy. Avoid the shadow of the future.
Edward Bernays
Torches of freedom
Edward Bernays’ bold marketing campaign went even israel mobile database further. To effectively break the taboo of smoking in public, Bernays decided to investigate what cigarettes meant to women. After consulting a local psychoanalytic expert, he came to the conclusion that cigarettes were a symbol of male power (according to the psychoanalyst he consulted, they literally represented “the phallus”) and that he could therefore get women to smoke cigarettes if he framed it as a way of challenging male power. To this end, Bernays organized a demonstration at the 1929 Easter Parade, where famous women displayed their “torches of freedom”: Lucky Strike cigarettes. Through this action, the brand became the symbol of gender equality in the United States during those years.
Torches of Freedom
About 1500 green cards
In the 1930s, a new problem arose that required Bernays’ advice. Washington Hill noticed that while women were smoking more cigarettes, for some reason they were not buying Lucky Strikes. A 1934 investigation Yielded a curious answer to this conundrum: the moss green color of the package was “hard to match.” Changing the color of the package was not an option since Washington Hill had spent a lot of money on those colors. Bernays, the father of public relations , applied his ingenuity and convinced fashion designers to incorporate the color into their new seasonal designs. He held a “Green Gala” at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for some of society’s most prominent tastemakers and sent 1,500 letters on green letterhead to interior decorators, home furnishings buyers, and art groups in the industry. The campaign was a success.
Edward Bernays
Torches of freedom
Edward Bernays’ bold marketing campaign went even israel mobile database further. To effectively break the taboo of smoking in public, Bernays decided to investigate what cigarettes meant to women. After consulting a local psychoanalytic expert, he came to the conclusion that cigarettes were a symbol of male power (according to the psychoanalyst he consulted, they literally represented “the phallus”) and that he could therefore get women to smoke cigarettes if he framed it as a way of challenging male power. To this end, Bernays organized a demonstration at the 1929 Easter Parade, where famous women displayed their “torches of freedom”: Lucky Strike cigarettes. Through this action, the brand became the symbol of gender equality in the United States during those years.
Torches of Freedom
About 1500 green cards
In the 1930s, a new problem arose that required Bernays’ advice. Washington Hill noticed that while women were smoking more cigarettes, for some reason they were not buying Lucky Strikes. A 1934 investigation Yielded a curious answer to this conundrum: the moss green color of the package was “hard to match.” Changing the color of the package was not an option since Washington Hill had spent a lot of money on those colors. Bernays, the father of public relations , applied his ingenuity and convinced fashion designers to incorporate the color into their new seasonal designs. He held a “Green Gala” at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for some of society’s most prominent tastemakers and sent 1,500 letters on green letterhead to interior decorators, home furnishings buyers, and art groups in the industry. The campaign was a success.