Propaganda by Edward Bernays

Propaganda is a book by Edward Bernays who is also known as the "father of public relations". One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Bernays had a distinct style of writing which many readers may find confusing. Many readers think that Bernays deliberately mixes up definitions so as to make them accept that propaganda is a better way of managing very large societies.

However, several people differ in opinion and believe that Bernays is very descriptive in his books and covers all the pros and cons without hiding any facts. This group of people compares Bernays' 'Propaganda' to the book 'Art of War' by Sun Tzu. According to them, it seems like Sun Tzu is trying to hide a lot of facts unlike Bernays who lays everything out in the open and explains everything in a very elaborate manner.

Propaganda

In the book 'Propaganda', Bernays tries to answer various questions related to philosophy and public opinion and tries to establish the fact that a society is ruled or governed by the consent of those being governed, be it for the good or bad. He also tries to throw light upon the political structure in a dictatorship or a democracy, starting from the bottom or the lowest level and going all the way to the top through intermediate hierarchies, trying to explain what makes those forms of governance different from propaganda.

Bernays gives the example of the American masses and argues that they had every reasonable opportunity to learn from the events that took place in 1990s but they did not and found war to be an acceptable solution. According to him, the public or a mob often makes such decisions emotionally rather than making it logically.

Bernays manages to establish the fact that propaganda is simply a tool for maintaining law and order. His book is very different from other books as it reveals all the techniques without any prejudice or hiding the truth. It shows a constant continuous dialect about what issues there are and how to proceed.

Propaganda the book has a philosophical angle to it, he tries to prove that those who participate in the process do so by their own choice and will.

Propaganda the book is probably more important in today's world: Middle eastern countries whose dictators are having to stand down because of people powered revolutions, the sometimes psychopathic spin doctors of the western world, media manipulations and political double-speak than when the book was originally published.

Propaganda is an eye opening read for anyone trying to learn how the ruling elite of the world use power and propaganda to try and rule our society.

Propaganda by Edward Bernays

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Example of a Newspaper Ad

Don't worry, this isn't something that requires you learn a bunch of copywriting tactics or complicated writing tricks. You just need to put yourself in the place of your prospect.

Let's jump into this with an example.

Ad

Let's say that you sell a book on how to have more fun boating while spending less money and you want to use the newspaper to get more people to your website.

You want to give a short and enticing headline that peaks enough interest to get people to your website, nothing more.

Instead of giving you a long-winded explanation or course on copywriting, I'll give you a handful of examples you can steal and model to fit your product or service.

Example #1

Learn Why I Have A Blast Boating Every Weekend And You Don't! Free Newsletter.
(url here)

Example #2

Secrets Ways To Boat More, Have More Fun & Spend Less Money. Free Report.
(url here)

Example #3

Do You Enjoy Boating? Learn How To Do It More Often & Have A Blast Doing It At This Free Website...
(url here)

As you can see from the examples above, it doesn't need to be some long winded advertisement. Just something short, simple and crafted to generate some curiosity is all you need.

You will also notice that there is a mention of there being a free report, newsletter or website. This is done to get the maximum amount of people to visit your link. It's a proven fact that if you mention something is free versus not mentioning a freebie, you will get more responses to your ad.

It is also very hard to sell directly from a newspaper. You will notice that 99% of the ads are all geared towards getting the reader to take an action that costs nothing such as make a phone call, come in to the store, visit a website, etc. This is no mistake. If you tried to sell your product in a newspaper, you would need to take out a huge expensive ad in order to provide enough information to actually sell your product and the response would probably not be profitable.

This is a key part of this system and will be explained further in the next section. Don't worry it's all easy to put together.

The key objective of this ad is to just get people with an interest in your offering to your website.

It is extremely simple for you to use the examples above in your own advertising.

For example, if you sell an investing newsletter you could simply use example #2 and replace "Secret Ways To Boat More" with "Secret Ways To Make More Money Investing", change the domain to yours and you have an instant ad.

Or if you sell a monthly membership to a site that offers video came codes and cheats you could take example #3 and replace "Do You Enjoy Boating?" with "Do You Enjoy Playing Video Games?"

I'm sure you can see the simplicity of using these examples for use in crafting your own advertisement. You don't need to reinvent the wheel or spend 10 hours trying to make you ad perfect. Just take one of the examples provided and tailor it to your own offer or mix and match the ads to create something you like more.

Example of a Newspaper Ad

By the way, do you want to learn more about using articles like this to drive traffic to your website and increase online conversions?

If so, I suggest you check this out: article marketing traffic.