Page:Propaganda by Edward Bernays.pdf/66

 them. The relationship between business and the public can be healthy only if it is the relationship of give and take.

It is this condition and necessity which has created the need for a specialized field of public relations. Business now calls in the public relations counsel to advise it, to interpret its purpose to the public, and to suggest those modifications which may make it conform to the public demand.

The modifications then recommended to make the business conform to its objectives and to the public demand, may concern the broadest matters of policy or the apparently most trivial details of execution. It might in one case be necessary to transform entirely the lines of goods sold to conform to changing public demands. In another case the trouble may be found to lie in such small matters as the dress of the clerks. A jewelry store may complain that its patronage is shrinking upwards because of its reputation for carrying goods; in this case the public relations counsel might suggest the featuring of  goods, even at a loss, not because the firm desires a large  trade as such, but because out of a hundred  customers acquired  a certain percentage will be  ten years from now. A department store which is seeking to gather in the trade may be urged to employ college graduates as clerks or to engage well known modern artists to design