The Covid-19 Vaccine PR Was a Disaster. What Can We Learn From This Messaging Failure?

Recognizing rhetorical approaches is a vital component of writing

In early 2021, I eagerly drove to the MetroHealth Broadway pop-up clinic to receive my first vaccine. Throughout the well-lit halls, friendly messages about maintaining social distance and wearing a mask were pasted on the walls, but I barely noticed them as I rushed toward my appointment, all smiles and excitement. Yes! This is almost over! I thought to myself as I happily greeted the receptionist and chattered with my nurse.

I wish I had paid closer attention to those cheery, brightly colored posters, because they may have held the clue to why this all went to hell.

Rhetoric, not science, is why vaccine messaging failed

We are often quick to scorn anti-vaxxers, calling them anti-science and claiming they are simply too stupid to know what’s good for them. However, I suspect that for many of them, the science doesn’t matter. They don’t actually believe that the vaccine is going to make them magnetic or cause infertility. Instead, they resent something much subtler and harder to place: the rhetoric that was used to market the vaccine.

Whether we realize it or not, rhetoric shapes our daily decisions, and we are all susceptible to different kinds of rhetorical approaches. The smiling baby on a package of fruit will appeal to a mother of three but makes me, a childfree woman, wrinkle my nose and scoff. A computer scientist will be more swayed by favorable statistics, while a writer will appreciate well-crafted paragraphs.

In the same way, different products or campaigns require different rhetorical attacks. There are well-established genres of marketing, prepackaged blends of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos that create the right symphony of morality, emotion, logic, and immediacy.

This is what caused the vaccine to fail so miserably: it was marketed with the wrong rhetorical approach.

The vaccine was marketed like a pharmaceutical instead of a public safety ad

What do I mean by this? Pharmaceutical ads use a far different mix of rhetoric than public safety ads do. To examine the differences, we will work through the moral, emotional, logical, and time-related techniques that appear in pharmaceutical ads versus public safety ads. We’ll compare typical pharmaceutical ads to Covid-19 vaccine ads, then contrast them with successful public safety campaigns.

Pharmaceuticals use morally neutral messaging; public safety ads suggest a moral imperative

Pharmaceutical ads do not lean on shame in order to get their message across; rather, they frame choosing a drug as a great option, but that not be “right for you.” It is viewed as a personal choice.

Public safety ads, in contrast, subtly (or not so subtly) imply that you’re a terrible person if you choose not to follow its prerogative. For example, this New Zealand drunk driving ad, while light-hearted, suggests that should you not stop a friend from drunk driving, you will be haunted by that poor choice forever. This road safety ad, also from New Zealand, shames the viewer into driving the speed limit because they could otherwise kill a defenseless child.

By framing the Covid-19 vaccine as an option rather than a moral necessity, public health agencies failed to recognize the power that can come from suggesting someone is morally corrupt should they choose not to follow the recommendation.

Pharmaceuticals imply positive outcomes; public safety ads show negative consequences

It’s a well-worn trope that pharmaceutical ads will promise great outcomes while downplaying any negatives. You will see a happy couple sailing on a glassy sea while a calm voice overlay glosses over the serious side effects that could occur by using the drug. We are supposed to feel light-hearted and relaxed when viewing these ads. Similarly, the Covid-19 vaccine campaigns emphasized that the vaccine will help us return to normal and bring us back together.

Public safety ads, in contrast, show dramatic consequences with serious voiceovers. One of the most well-known campaigns was “Your Brain on Drugs” where Rachael Leigh Cook smashes a kitchen to show the devastating effects of heroin. An even more frightening public safety campaign was the Montana Meth Project, where, in under a minute, we are shown the downfall of a teenager who started using methamphetamines. We are meant to feel afraid and overwhelmed, swearing to ourselves that we’ll never put ourselves in such a situation.

Public safety campaigns rely on aversion, rather than attraction, in order to compel the viewer to avoid a certain outcome. In other words, they use the stick — not the carrot. By suggesting positive outcomes rather than negative consequences, the Covid-19 vaccine campaign failed to inspire consumers to prevent illness. The CDC should have considered the wild success of their “Tips from Former Former Smokers” campaign, which successfully pared down the cigarette market by showing the gruesome effects of smoking.

We would have been better off using Australia’s approach to the Covid-19 vaccine, which shows a woman gasping for breath, terrified by the repercussions of her poor choice. While commentators complained that it was “heavy-handed” and “manipulative,” all messaging is manipulative — that’s the whole point of any advertisement. And, in fact, I would argue that this ad didn’t go far enough.

Pharmaceuticals emphasize statistics; public safety ads emphasize the individual

Using statistics is an appeal to logic, suggesting that if the majority of people find relief from a certain therapy, it will probably work for you too. It also invites further skepticism and inquiry: how were these statistics gathered? What was the population sampled?

Throughout the vaccine campaign, we have been bombarded with statistics about the efficacy of vaccines. The problem with using statistics is that people tune them out unless they are particularly interested in them. Placing statistics to the forefront makes the conversation an impersonal, abstract one, which is especially troubling given that many people doubt the validity of most statistics.

Good public safety campaigns downplay the statistics while focusing on the individual. For example, this CDC anti-smoking ad starts with a statistic but immediately pivots to looking at the individual effects of smoking. By moving from broad categories to singular experiences, we are shown that this person is part of the statistics — and we could be just a statistic too if we don’t learn from this person’s mistakes.

A great approach for the vaccine would have stated that over 800,000 people have died from the pandemic, a large percentage of whom were not vaccinated. It would have then focused on a single individual’s death and the tragic impact that loss has had on their family. With such an approach, the viewer would recognize that unless they get the vaccine, they would also be leaving their families grieving.

Pharmaceuticals suggest long-term decisions; public safety ads emphasize immediacy

“Talk to your doctor to see if Drugpharm is right for you.” This slogan, repeated ad nauseum in drug ads, suggests that no decision needs to be made right now: you just need to think about it, expose yourself to further advertising, and convince yourself that this medication is worthwhile enough to mention to your doctor.

We also saw this throughout the vaccine campaign: “talk to your doctor about the Covid-19 vaccine.” There were even ads that emphasized how the vaccine is a long-term decision, like this German ad showing a man years in the future laughing about how quarantine was a great time.

While it’s true that the vaccine is a long-term decision, this is not the pressure tactic you want to take when you want to convince millions of people to all do something. When you make it clear that someone can decide later whether to take it, there will inevitably be many that simply never make the decision at all. The failure of this approach is obvious when you look at news reports of Covid patients, many of whom claim they were willing to take the vaccine — they just never got around to it.

To inspire immediate action, ads that focus on the short-term encourage similarly short-term thinking. The viewer thinks, “I need to do this NOW! There’s no time to wait!” For example, this distracted driving ad shows that a person’s life can change in a split second thanks to one bad decision. There’s an obvious message here: five seconds of texting can cause decades of misery for your loved ones.

How could we have done this for the vaccine? Maybe, like 1–800-QUITNOW, a VAXNOW hotline and website would have emphasized that this is a decision to take right away. Ads could have contrasted the quick and easy vaccination process versus the drawn-out, agonizing death caused by Covid-19. There are any number of ways to spur instantaneous action, but our public health agents refused to use any of them.

What can writers learn from this PR failure?

Thankfully, most of us will never have to craft an enormous, nationwide campaign about an emergent issue. However, we can still take some vital lessons from examining the rhetoric around the vaccine that we can use in our own work.

#1 Know what rhetorical tactics to use and when

Obviously, the main point here is that it’s essential to know what rhetorical tactics you are using and how they will be received by your audience. Your use of morality, emotion, logic, and timeliness needs to reflect what you are actually trying to achieve.

Each of the tactics discussed above can be effective, but they are only effective when paired with the right cause. The laid-back, cheery pharmaceutical approach simply does not hold the same punch as the terrifying, dark public safety approach, and necessarily so. The goal is utterly different, and so the outcome will be as well.

#2 Consider the desired outcome of your message

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you want someone to do something today, tomorrow, never? Do you want to imbue them with hope, or scare them straight? Simple tweaks, like using statistics or adding pictures, can completely change how something is received. By knowing your desired outcome, you can choose the appropriate rhetorical approach and ensure your message is heard loud and clear.

#3 Consider the harm of action versus the harm of inaction

We can argue all we want about the ethics of using marketing for any health decision, but the fact is that public relations campaigns have been run for all manner of important choices, and refusing to accept their utility is foolish. When lives are at stake, it’s important to fight hard, as our public health organizations have for decades on other issues.

Could trust be lost in the CDC if they had used more dramatic messaging? Perhaps. It didn’t seem to be the case when organizing against smoking, but it’s possible that, given how politicized Covid-19 has been, some may say that aggressively pushing the vaccine would be a bridge too far. But public health officials, at the onset, should have considered how valuable their reputation would be versus the value of each life lost from vaccine refusal. After all, reputations can be recovered — lives cannot.

When we write, it’s important to consider not just the value of our words, but the harm that could be done by not writing. Our work isn’t usually life-and-death, but when we write about topics like mental health, it very well could be.

There is a lesson in everything, even catastrophe. I desperately wish that our public health agencies had considered their messaging before developing their vaccine ads; the right approach could have saved even one more life, and that would have been worth all the trouble.

Join Medium to read more of my work!

Only $5 a month gets you unlimited access to millions of articles on any topic imaginable, from poetry to politics.

Click here to directly support my writing when you sign up!

Please consider sharing my link with your friends and family who also appreciate introspective, innovative writing. Thank you so much for your support — it means the world to me.