Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays was basically the uncle of modern marketing — someone who not only understood how to mess with people's minds, but thought it was a great idea to turn it into a profession. Born in 1891 in Vienna (yes, nephew of Freud, the one with the couch), he took his uncle's talks about the unconscious and applied them directly to advertising: why sell soap by showing soap, when you can sell it with emotion, status and a touch of insecurity?

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In the US, Bernays helped convince women to smoke (by calling cigarettes ‘torches of freedom’), sell war with a democratic twist, and make bacon and eggs a standard breakfast. With his book Propaganda, he practically founded the cult of modern persuasion, showing that consumption is not born out of necessity, but out of well-manipulated desire. He died in 1995, probably with advertising still whispering ‘thank you, master’ in every commercial that appeals to our ego or fear of being left out.