By Elizabeth Boineau
Contributing Writer

It strikes me as interesting that word-of-mouth marketing, or WOM as it’s often referred to, is so much the embodiment of what strategic public relations has been about for some 100 years.

The best-regarded theory of public relations was espoused by Edward Bernays, whose biography has been captured in the book “The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of PR” by Larry Tye.

Bernays, who died in 1995 at 103, is widely regarded as the father of public relations and had numerous industry firsts and accolades to substantiate the title.

Among the notable public opinion campaigns he commandeered were helping Woodrow Wilson develop propaganda in support of allied war aims during World War I and PR plans and programs for politicians and companies like General Motors and Procter & Gamble.

Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and his public relations efforts helped to advance Freud’s theories in the United States.

Bernays also pioneered the industry’s use of psychology and other social sciences to design public persuasion/relations campaigns.

Having studied Freud fairly extensively while pursuing a degree in psychology, I am reminded every day how this profession is at the core of understanding and influencing human behavior.

One tactic that marketers often employ was a favorite technique of Bernays’ for manipulating public opinion: the objective use of “third party authorities” to support the efforts and claims of clients.

“If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group they sway,” Bernays said.

If that’s not core to word-of-mouth marketing, I am hard-pressed to follow the 21st century translation.

Bernays’s clients included President Calvin Coolidge, Procter & Gamble, CBS, the American Tobacco Co., General Electric and Dodge Motors. Beyond his contributions to such headliner clients, Bernays transformed public relations by combining traditional press relations with the techniques of psychology and sociology to win friends and influence the minds of many.

PR historian Scott Cutlip describes Bernays as perhaps PR’s most fabulous and fascinating individual, a man who was bright, beyond articulate and, most of all, an innovative thinker and philosopher of his vocation all the way back to the early 1900s when he opened his first PR office.

Bernays defined the profession of “counsel on public relations,” for which he commanded $1,000 an hour late in his career, as a “practicing social scientist” whose “competence is like that of the industrial engineer, the management engineer or the investment counselor in their respective fields.”

To assist clients, PR counselors used “understanding of the behavioral sciences and applying them—sociology, social psychology, anthropology, history, etc.”

Cutlip has called PR “the unseen power,” in part because of its ability to “pull the wires,” as Bernays referred to it. That may seem extreme today, but back when propaganda was often at play on the global political scene, such influence was relevant and powerful when well-planned and managed.

To call it manipulation may be taking it too far, but in “Propaganda,” his most important book—others include “Crystallizing Public Opinion” and “The Engineering of Consent”—Bernays argued that the scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and conflict in society.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society,” he wrote. “In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

So a better understanding of the history of PR may enlighten today’s WOM marketers, including myself.

It is difficult to measure the power of influence that what we read from respected journalists, hear from esteemed colleagues and learn from friends and family about a preference for a particular product, service or even a totally new way of doing things may have on us.

But don’t underestimate its power when it’s time to pull out and dust off the public relations tools in your marketing arsenal. You just might convert prospects to customers and customers to evangelists who have the power to influence the masses, one mind at a time.

Elizabeth L. Boineau runs E. Boineau & Co., a Charleston-based strategic marketing communications and public relations firm. E-mail her at eboineau@eboineauandco.com.

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