The great manipulation

Design is all about manipulation. It's as simple as that.

Some designers like to deny this simple fact. They think they're too pure, too well intentioned to call it that. But if we're honest to ourselves, it's the entire truth.

Every day we're all being played in ways so subtle and sophisticated that we barely notice it happening. It's a beautiful con really, one that's been refined over generations by people who understood something fundamental about human nature — we're all suckers for a good story. We all like to be told what think.

One grandfather (amongst many more) of all this madness was a guy named Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew and quite possibly one of the most influential people you've never heard of.

I first encountered Bernays' work many years ago through a documentary called "The Century of the Self" (watch at your own risk). After replaying this 3hour long documentary over and over again, I eventually found myself diving into his many books, particularly one called "Propaganda."

It all started in the 1920s.

While the rest of the world was trying to wash off the stink of World War I propaganda, I imagine Edward Bernays sitting in his reclined chair with a whiskey in his hands (Don Draper style) thinking about how to invent an entirely new industry from scratch. In fact, he also invented Don Draper, now that I think of it.

Over the years, Bernays studied his uncle's work (Sigmund Freud) diligently, almost obsessively, learning about the fundamental insight that humans are largely irrational beings. A revelation that drove his uncle into a deep depression, as he was troubled by humanity's flawed nature and couldn't see a way out of this sad dilemma.

But not Edward Bernays. He saw this exact same human weakness as the ultimate opportunity. If people weren't guided by reason but by subconscious desires and emotional triggers, then shaping public opinion wasn't about facts or logic, but about tapping into those hidden feelings of their emotions.

One man's existential crisis essentially became another's business model.

While going through his uncle's work, Bernays asked himself what might be the most profitable question of the century: "If propaganda works so well during wartime, what's its peacetime equivalent?"

And just like that, PR was born. It was an entirely new concept at the time: same ingredients as propaganda, but different packaging. It was so genius that even today we can't fully appreciate the power of it. Instead of calling it "Mass Manipulation" we just call it "Public Relations," and that was the first big success of Edward Bernays.

But nothing illustrates Bernays' methods better than his "Torches of Freedom" campaign. It truly has it all.

Shortly after WWI, Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company to encourage women to start smoking. Because the problem was, they weren't. While men smoked cigarettes at the time, it was not publicly acceptable for women to do the same. But this is where Bernays saw an opportunity to attach his product to a wider movement.

Let's picture New York, back in 1929. As people gather for the annual Easter parade, a group of fashionable young women (all of them carefully selected of varying social status) simultaneously pull out cigarettes and light them up in public – a total scandal at the time when smoking in public was very much taboo. It was all over the news the next day, carefully orchestrated by Bernays himself, who controlled the message.

But here's the genius: On the surface, none of this was about smoking, but about women breaking free from outdated social constraints. These weren't cigarettes – they were symbols of liberation in an ongoing struggle for equality. They were TORCHES OF FREEDOM as they called them. Within days, women across America challenged existing smoking taboos, and Lucky Strike had a whole new demographic with millions of new customers. And that was the only thing that mattered to Edward Bernays. His client was happy.

Transforming a commercial product into a political statement and making consumers feel empowered by their own manipulation isn't new by today's standards, but this man practically invented it.

And he was so damn good at it too.

Then there's my personal favorite of his projects: What's the great traditional American breakfast? Ask anyone and they will tell you it's Bacon & Eggs. It can't get any more traditional than that, right?

But turns out, tradition doesn't have a lot to do with it. And even worse, people had to be convinced to eat bacon for breakfast back in the day. But in the 1920s, the Beech-Nut Packing Company wanted to sell more bacon. So they naturally hired Edward Bernays.

He surveyed thousands of physicians with a carefully crafted question: "Is a hearty breakfast better than a light one?" When they predictably recommended the heartier option, he already knew he won. Bernays then publicized these findings with the medical underwriting that "Bacon and Eggs is the Doctors choice." You really have to admire the elegance of all this.

The influence of Bernays goes even further than just consumer products. He was the first one who pioneered the strategic use of celebrities in politics. Breaking with tradition, he advised the sitting president to invite popular entertainers and cultural icons to the White House. He understood that photographs of these meetings would circulate widely in the press and boost the image of the president, and therefore their agenda.

Bernays knew the power of association, even if staged. The public was too irrational to even understand the complexities of it. He effectively invented merging the layer of politics with popular culture, another practice we take for granted today in a world where you may as well call politics a "popularity contest".

In the years to come, David Ogilvy & Co. built entire entire empires on the foundations Bernays established. Design, marketing, PR — all just different parts of the same thing.

The truth is, design – whether it's online, in advertising, or even the layout of your favorite shopping mall – is never innocent. It's always trying to make you feel something, do something, want something. Every color, every shape, every carefully chosen word is part of an elaborate dance designed to lead you exactly where someone wants you to go.

And my god, would Bernays still be alive today — imagine him witnessing the evolution of his baby into today's digital mass manipulation ecosystem. He'd be a proud dad, with us being his devoted children. We've mastered the art of manipulation beyond his wildest dreams. Endless feeds engineered to keep you scrolling, like a gambler at a rigged slot machine. Platforms that track billions of people's psychological profiles in real-time. Algorithms that predict behavior with unnerving accuracy, and A/B testing that can refine persuasion techniques instantaneously. For Bernays, this would be like meeting God himself.

So where does this leave us? The real question isn't whether we're being manipulated — we are, constantly and from every direction. The question is what we do once we recognize we're just a player inside a game. Design is just a tool, like a sword. It's clearly very effective at what it does, but it's all about who's using it and why.

The truth is, design will always be about influence and manipulation. Our only choice is what kind of influence we want to have, and whose interests we choose to serve.

The least we can do is appreciate the artistry of it all, even as we're being led precisely where someone else wants us to go.

Sometimes, the most sophisticated response is simply to say: "I see what you're doing there, and I may not agree with all of it – but it's damn smart."

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful week!

Yours truly,
Tobias