Week 4- PR before I was Born

3 Feb
Public Relations is a field concerning the Public image for a business. They work with many celebrities and politicians. If I could work in an era of PR history, I would pick the era of the 1800s. The 1800s was the period of the Golden Age of the press agent. This is where the press agent P.T. Barnum pioneered many techniques which we are still using today. The Webster’s New World Dictionary says that a person whose work is to get publicity for an organization, individual, and so forth.
 
 
Barnum was the ultimate showman. He planned a public relations event, the marrying of Tom Thumb to another midget. He was a success of Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale” He attracted many of the towns’ leaders. This is still employed today by entertainment publicists.  I think this would have been really fun to see and would have been really entertaining.
 
  
Then later in the 1870s all the publicity and promotion paid off! The railroads became very popular. I mean how cool would it to be seeing this! The railroads ended up attracting 4.5 million people to Midwestern states. This was all established because of the complex communication strategies. Of course without people, though, no railroads could be sustained. There were not a lot of people out on the West so this really brought a great opportunity for them.
 
 
 
  
In the 1980’s the debate between the Coca- Cola and Pepsi took place. The choice of drinking either of these drinks was a huge contest back then. I think this would have been a great experience to be involved in because this is so popular even in our world today. You can go to a restaurant and they either carry Pepsi products or Coke products. It is very rare to find someone that carries both of these products.  Even on today’s shows you can watch them and see people taking polls if you can tell the difference between these two products. This is still a huge controversy today!
 

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