OUGD 601 - Dissertation research (Imagery)

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It's impossible to fundamentally grasp these social and cultural developments made by advertising and PR campaigns without some understanding of Edward Bernays, also known as 'The Father of public relations'. Bernays drew upon his uncle, Sigmund Freud, who was the first person to look at the mind and to develop a theory about its basis and creation. In effect Freud established the foundation for our current thinking about the mind. It was an attempt to understand the unconscious human mind and its mental development, a way of categorising and understanding desires, motivations and dreams. Freud believed "Unconscious wishes are always active and ready for expression whenever they find an opportunity to unite themselves with an emotion from conscious life" (Freud, 1913, p.86). Bernays sought to harness these forces and began using his nephews psychoanalytic ideas for the benefit of business and promotion of commodities such as cigarettes, he was adopting techniques that would ultimately control masses "If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it" (Bernays, 2005, p.71). In other words Bernays understood that consumers often share the same characteristics (habits, tastes, economic status, sex, age and so on) yet could still be very different people. Meaning there was a chance to target consumer segments that will share a set of preferences for their products. Bernays had recognised the unconscious desire to advertising and PR campaigns. He had revolutionised advertising by applying the manipulation of: public opinion, values and beliefs and it was during the 1920s that this became a dominant aspect of consumer culture.

Through such iconography, advertisers were able to establish these characters as complete beings, individual identities, and all through the act of smoking. Tobacco companies had free reign to sponsor and advertise as they saw fit, take for example the case of Winston Cigarettes, with one of the best known advertising campaigns for American tobacco. 'Winston tastes good like a cigarette should'. This slogan appeared throughout popular culture, in: newspapers, magazines, radio and television advertisements. In the radio and television advertisements, the slogan was presented in a sing song fashion. It had even became integrated into the Cartoon programme, the Flintstones, one of the most popular Cartoon programmes of its time. The programme was aired during prime time and in this particular ad, Barney and Fred watch their wives do a whole load of chores, "I hate to see them work so hard" (Fraser, 2014) says Barney, Fred then suggests going to the back of the house so they won't have to watch anymore, where they quickly light up, escaping the idea of work to relax and indulge in a pleasurable activity. In essence this whole scene is communicating their achievement of pleasure through the comparison of tedious jobs and the smoking of Winston cigarettes, consequently the Winston cigarette has become the signifier of meaning, for the idea of relaxation, indulgence and pleasure.

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The following display strong messages that use every means of suggestion available to persuade the greatest possible number of people to act in a pre-determined way.

Advertising had started to sell values, images, concepts. Teaching us that products can fulfil and meet our deepest human needs. Thus causing consumers to interpret an advertisement based on its meaning in the light of associations we have with these images. This meant the advertising of tobacco had to be sensitive to desires and cultural norms, the ability of tobacco advertisers to both read and shape these emerging cultural forces was strongly evident throughout their advertising. They shaped the publics perception of smoking to their benefit, building up a prestige in the consumers eyes. This was especially important because the cigarette was a product of such little usefulness, lasting for a very short time and it was largely an undifferentiated product. Cigarette advertisers got actors, athletes and even doctors to endorse their goods, with the help of pseudo-scientific medical reports, advertisers were also able to make astonishing claims. Because of such things, smoking was widely agreed as having certain health benefits, refer to image noted below... for example of Lucky Strike's advertisements which communicated a variety of messages, from the idea that toasted cigarettes are less harmful to your throat and reduce coughing, to the suggestion that their cigarettes could lead to noticeable weight loss "When tempted to over-indulge, reach for a Lucky Instead", says the 1930 Lucky Strike advertisement. To support this idea of embedding meaning, Freud said that "sometimes a cigar is only a cigar" true, but the obverse of his statement, which we must keep in mind, is that sometimes a cigar isn't only a cigar. It is the unconscious appeal that is behind the acceptance of inducements to chose." (Berger, 2007, p94). This shows that people aren't just smoking for the enjoyment of tobacco or the influence of nicotine, but because of a multitude of persuasions. This is the result of cutting edge industry efforts to advertising the cigarette. In conclusion to 'why' It is our search for meaning which has created and given cigarette advertisers the ability to shape our interpretations. There are no doubt more factors at play when you consider this from the perspective that; advertisers not only shaped our interpretation of the meaning of cigarettes but permanently moulded it. Such a viewpoint could be explained by how our personality is goverened resulting in how we identify with the meaning in advertisements.

The broadness and array of cigarette advertising is so vast that it would take weeks to document them all, instead I've chosen a range of advertisements above, that blatantly show the strategies and tactics that advertisers were employing to improve and solidify their popularity.