Edward Bernays worked on the women’s cigarette smoking campaign in the late 1920s.
In the US in the 1920s, women were prohibited from smoking outside.
If they wanted to smoke, they had to do so in the comfort of their homes.Lucky Strike, looking to increase its market base, hired Edward Bernays to help. Lucky Strike wanted to get people to change the perception of women smoking in public.
Psychoanalyst A. A. Brill suggested to Bernays (Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew) that if smoking could be linked to female empowerment (the women’s right to vote recently passed), women may fight against the outdoor smoking taboo.
Edward Bernays convinced a group of former suffragettes to march down Fifth Avenue, smoking Lucky Strikes or what Brill named “Torches of Freedom.”
Marching down the street smoking would symbolize equality to men (who could freely smoke in public).
The media was informed anonymously of the stunt by Bernays and news stories and photos of the women were later published.
That year, cigarette sales tripled.
Bernays had a smashing success on his hands.
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