WHAT DOES THE HISTORY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS TEACH ME?
The history of PR teaches me ways that PR practitioners have both failed and succeeded through different events in America’s history. By studying these examples and both the long term and short term effect the Public Relations’ attempts had on their environment, we can learn how to manage certain publics’ perceptions of an organization.
Bernays, who was the first to use the term “Public Relations” to describe the discipline which it consists of, used PR to increase sales of the American Tobacco Company by boosting their image. He created a “green ball” which allowed the public to perceive green as a “high class” color and therefore, buy the cigarettes with the green wrappers.
Another example of how historical examples teach us PR methods is the scopes monkey trial. A law was set that evolution was not to be taught in school but George Rappleyea, from Dayton recruited John Scopes to disobey the law and teach evolution in schools. When he was arrested, the trial was on and the political struggle over Darwinism was set in Dayton to draw attention to the town which had been going through rough times. The publicity stunt worked because decades later the town is still a focal point for the evolutionary debate. This was one of many pseudoevents where controversies or publicity events were formed from nothing to draw attention to a certain place or organization.
