Selling tequila shots is easy. Selling vaccine shots: Not so much.
In the new year, we will see governments around the world trying to convince their citizens to step up and get their COVID vaccine shots. Of course, some countries will just demand everyone get their jab and because they control everything else in their citizens’ life, they will get (mostly) obedience on this front as well. But in Australia and other countries where citizens enjoy more freedom and where citizens have a lot more control over their own lives, it will be a tougher task.
There already exists a substantial “anti-vax” movement, with varying degrees of understanding and rationale behind their stance. But when you throw into the mix the lack of trials and rigorous testing before the vaccines are rolled out, those ranks will expand to accommodate much of the mainstream thinking. A large market segment will be the people who wholeheartedly believe in a lot of our vaccines – polio, for instance. But they have concerns about different types of vaccines that may not seem as necessary or as effective as some of the big ones. Add to that the rushed nature of COVID vaccines and marketing the jab will be pretty difficult.
In any type of sales, there is a tendency for people to go into a “threat response” when they are being sold to. And people in 2020 are very “advertising literate” and know when they are being sold to – even with those relatively innocuous product placements in movies and reality TV shows. Marketers can use various techniques to overcome that threat response and they will have to be on their game to get enough jabs to achieve the goal of herd immunity.
These are some of the key techniques to look out for when the advertising starts in Australia:
- Assurances of “the science”
- Experience of vaccine developers
- Point to extensive testing
- Highlight successful outcomes so far
- Use of celebrities getting their shot
- Making people feel like they are in control
- Offering choice – vaccine type, doctor, or timing
- Appeal for “leadership”
- Protecting other people
- Showing how others will appreciate your action
- Sense of being “in this together”
- Suggesting everyone has to do their share
- Making it shameful to refuse the jab
- Demonstration of consequences of no vaccine
Having an understanding of how the brain works and what influences people in their decision-making will produce a long list of angles to use in selling the vaccine. Those angles will be converted to appropriate messaging for different audiences and media. It will be interesting what angles the government will take in their campaign to convince people to get “the jab”. When the ads start hitting our tv screens (and they will), we will come back to the list see what angles they chose to run with.