How did he change the social standard?

His cigarette manufacturing client wanted to boost sales. And half of the market sat untapped: women. Bernays went to work:
First, he hired a psychoanalyst who told him cigarettes represented freedom from male restriction and smoking symbolized women regaining their power and independence.
He then got a group of women to march in the Easter Day Parade.
On his signal, they would bring out and light up hidden cigarettes — an absolutely shocking public act!
He told the press he gathered for this that the women were marching for the right to vote and their cigarettes were “torches of freedom.”
Note:

1. how he finds a psychological hot button, freedom from social restriction …
2. then ties it to a core American political ideology, freedom …
3. promotes it in a controversial public act that defies social standards by shifting them higher to the women’s new ideal standard of freedom …
4. and wraps it in a three-word slogan that encompasses freedom … and
5. connects it to a huge issue of the day, the then-current women’s struggle for the right to vote

Result, he creates an iron-clad argument for women to smoke. After all, who in America can argue against half the population standing up for their freedom? And he proves you could create irrational (and absolutely deadly) behavior by linking them to people’s irrational emotions and feelings. All this to change then current beliefs and social standards … for a deadly commercial product. And the industry continued to link emotions and feelings:     Smoking = freedom     Smoking = rebellion from parental authority     Smoking = being cool, hip

If you want an example other than everyone’s favorite punching bag, look at our consumer culture and status goods and the link between irrational (and financial deadly) behavior and irrational emotions and feelings:
    Owning a Lexus or Mercedes Benz = feeling rich
    Owning a Louis Vuitton or Gucci bag = feeling rich

Yet, how do most people acquire these symbols of wealth? By driving themselves away from wealth and riches by going into debt with a high-interest car loan or credit card charge.

Now, if this was done in the earliest unrefined days of public relations, imagine what people believe today with 90 years of professional tweaking and refining? Imagine what you believe today?

http://www.rippermarketing.com/blog/