Crystallizing Public Opinion

by Edward L. Bernays

The public relations counsel must take into account that many groups exist, and that there is a very definite interlapping of groups. Because of this he is enabled to utilize many types of appeal in reaching any one group, which he sub-divides for his purposes.

The Federation for the Support of Jewish Charities recently instituted a campaign to raise millions of dollars for what it called its United Building Fund. The directors of that campaign might have subdivided society for their purpose into two groups, the Jewish and the non-Jewish group, or they might have decided that there were rich people who could give and poor people who could not give. But they realized the interlapping nature of the groups they wanted to reach. They analyzed these component groups closely and divided them into groups which had common business interests. For instance, they organized a group of dentists, a group of bankers, a group of real estate operators, a group of cloak-and-suit-house operators, a group of motion picture and theatrical owners and others.

Through an approach to each group on the strongest appeal to which the members of the group as a group would respond, the charity received the support of the individuals who made it up. The social aspirations of the group, the ambitions for leadership of the group, the competitive desires and philanthropic tendencies of the individuals who made up these groups were capitalized.

The interlapping nature of these groups made it possible, too, for the public relations counsel to reach all the individuals by appeals that were directed not merely to the individual as a member of the business group with which he was aligned, but also as a member of a different group. For instance, as a humanitarian, as a public-spirited citizen, or as a devoted Jew. Because of this interlapping characteristic of groups, the organization was able to accomplish its purpose more successfully.

Society is made up of an almost infinite number of groups, whose various interests and desires overlap and interweave inextricably. The same man may be at the same time the member of a minority religious sect, supporter of the dominant political party, a worker in the sense that he earns his living primarily by his labor, and a capitalist in the sense that he has rents from real estate investments or interest from financial investments. In an issue which involves his religious sect he will align himself with one group. In an issue which involves the choice of a President of the United States he aligns himself with another group. In an industrial issue between capital and labor it might be very nearly impossible to estimate in advance how he would align himself. It is from the constant interplay of these groups and of their conflicting interests upon each other that progress results, and it is this fact that the public relations counsel takes into account in pleading his cause. A movement called “The Go-Getters,” instituted by a magazine, as much to keep itself before the public eye as to stimulate commercial activity, found rapid acceptance throughout the country because it appealed to trades of every description, because each group had among its members men who belonged also to a large group, the group of salesmen.

Let us examine for a moment the personnel of the Horseshoe at the Metropolitan Opera House. It is composed of people who are rich, but this economic classification is only one, for the men and women who assemble there are presumably music lovers. But we may again break up this classification of music lovers and discover that this group contains art lovers as well. It contains sportsmen. It contains merchants and bankers. There are philosophers in it. There are motorists and amateur farmers. When the Russian Ballet came to America the essential parts of this group attended the performances, but in going after his public, the public relations counsel based his actions upon the interlapping of groups, and appealed to his entire possible audience through their various interlapping group interests. The art lover had been stimulated by hearing of the Ballet through his art group or the art publications and by seeing pictures of the costumes and the settings. The music lover, who might have had his interest stimulated through seeing a photograph, also had his interest stimulated by reading about the music.

Every individual heard of the Russian Ballet in terms of one or more different appeals and responded to the Ballet because of these appeals. It is naturally difficult to say which one of them had its strongest effect upon the individual’s mind. There was no doubt, however, that the interlapping group formation of society made it possible for more to be reached and to be moved than would have been the case if the Ballet had been projected on the world at large only as a well-balanced artistic performance.

The utilization of this characteristic of society was shown recently in the activities of a silk firm which desired to intensify the interest of the public in silks. It realized that fundamentally women were its potential buying public, but it understood, too, that the women who made up this public were members of other groups as well. Thus, to the members of women’s clubs, silk was projected as the embodiment of fashion. To those women who visited museums, silk was displayed there as art. To the schools in the same town, perhaps, silk became a lesson in the natural history of the silkworm. To art clubs, silk became color and design. To newspapers, the events that transpired in the silk mills became news matters of importance.

Each group of women was appealed to on the basis of its greatest interest. The school teacher was appealed to in the schoolroom as an educator, and after school hours as a member of a women’s club. She read the advertisements about silk as a woman reader of the newspapers, and as a member of the women’s group which visited the museums, saw the silk there. The woman who stayed at home was brought into contact with the silk through her child. All these groups made up the potential market for silk, reached in this way in terms of many appeals to each individual. These are the implications present for the public relations counsel, who must take into account the interchange and interplay of groups in pleading his cause.

For society, the interesting outcome of this situation is that progress seldom occurs through the abrupt expulsion by a group of its old ideas in favor of new ideas, but rather through the rearrangement of the thought of the individuals in these groups with respect to each other and with respect to the entire membership of society.