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The federal authorities has launched a brand new A$11 million advert marketing campaign urging Australians to “tackle winter” by getting COVID boosters and influenza vaccines, in addition to selling COVID vaccination for kids.
The adverts come at a vital time. COVID booster vaccination charges have plateaued at 70% and solely about 40% of youngsters aged 5-11 have had two doses.
But COVID boosters – a 3rd dose for many adults, or fourth dose for individuals over 65 years and in excessive threat teams – are vital. They improve safety in opposition to extreme illness, which wanes inside three months of the second COVID vaccine dose.
Whereas most youngsters expertise comparatively gentle COVID signs, some kids, together with those that have been beforehand wholesome, can get very sick and must be admitted to hospital. We don’t need children to get COVID and vaccination may also help to guard them.
On high of COVID, we’re additionally experiencing our greatest flu season since 2019, which has hit laborious and early.
Older adults and youngsters six months to 5 years are among the many teams on the highest threat from flu. And since we’ve had no flu season through the pandemic, kids beneath two years have by no means been uncovered and haven’t any immunity.
The brand new Tackle Winter advert urges us so as to add COVID boosters and flu vaccination to our winter to-do lists.
However whereas the federal government’s new adverts get some issues proper, they miss the mark in different areas: they don’t join on an emotional degree by highlighting significant advantages of vaccination they usually don’t tackle most individuals’s foremost issues.
What makes a very good marketing campaign?
A well-designed marketing campaign can increase consciousness about vaccine availability and eligibility, form social norms by emphasising shared values, and generate vaccine demand by highlighting the person and collective advantages of vaccination.
Final 12 months, we studied what individuals from the preliminary vaccine precedence teams (health-care staff, individuals aged over 65 years and people with underlying well being situations) thought and felt about COVID vaccines, and what they needed from communication campaigns and supplies.
Based mostly on what they instructed us, efficient communication ought to:
present details about vaccine security and effectiveness
tackle individuals’s issues about unwanted effects
spotlight the broader advantages of vaccination, not simply these associated to non-public well being
focus on the severity of COVID an infection
talk about vaccine availability
personalise data, to account for individuals’s underlying medical situations and coverings
use actual, numerous spokespeople
use clear and easy language, and construct belief via transparency.
Learn extra:
Various spokespeople and humour: how the federal government’s subsequent advert marketing campaign might enhance COVID vaccine uptake
We additionally advocate utilizing humour and emotion to generate engagement and improve motivation to vaccinate, whereas avoiding fear-based messaging which may backfire or trigger unintended harms.
What’s within the new marketing campaign?
The Tackle Winter advert meets a few of our really helpful standards however falls brief in different areas.
It makes clear the vital message that it’s protected to get your COVID and flu photographs on the identical time.
It has a transparent name to motion – “ebook as we speak” – and notes the vaccines can be found at GPs and pharmacies.
Nonetheless, its creators made the disappointing choice to recycle the unengaging, faceless arms of final 12 months’s A$41 million Arm Your self marketing campaign, which fell flat and didn’t resonate with viewers.
Learn extra:
Australia’s new vaccination marketing campaign is one other wasted alternative
Within the youngster COVID vaccination advert, Youngsters might be children, which was additionally launched final week, the forged is numerous, however there’s no actual hyperlink made between vaccination and the youngsters doing generic child issues.
What’s lacking?
Whereas a TV advert can’t do all the things to deal with vaccine hesitancy, these adverts have some notable gaps.
Neither of the federal government’s adverts do a lot to deal with issues about unwanted effects. The most typical motive mother and father cite for not vaccinating their kids is concern about vaccine security and unwanted effects, although kids expertise fewer unwanted effects than adults. However the Youngsters might be Youngsters advert simply makes use of a comparatively simplistic motherhood assertion about vaccine security.
Adults are additionally involved about unwanted effects. Some individuals who had disagreeable, short-term unwanted effects after dose two are reluctant to get a booster dose – although unwanted effects after the booster are reported much less often than after dose two. Speaking about how nicely vaccine security is monitored in Australia and the low prevalence of frequent and anticipated unwanted effects can reassure individuals.
The adverts are additionally unlikely to generate an emotional response from viewers, which is a vital a part of motivating behaviour change. The Tackle Winter advert fails to hyperlink COVID vaccine boosters or the flu shot with any significant private advantages or motivators, comparable to with the ability to go to work, journey, socialise or see aged grandparents. There is no such thing as a emotional resonance.
And whereas we agree with the choice to keep away from a fear-based message in Youngsters might be children, one of many major components driving vaccine intention and uptake is perceived susceptibility to COVID. Many mother and father really feel their children aren’t vulnerable to severe illness, or they’ve already had COVID, so that they don’t see the urgency or worth in vaccinating them.
A extra particular message in regards to the significance of vaccination, even for individuals who have already had COVID, or private tales from actual mother and father of beforehand wholesome children who acquired very sick from COVID, would probably resonate extra strongly.
Learn extra:
Simply the details, or extra element? To battle vaccine hesitancy, the messaging must be good
We have to respect how discerning persons are, particularly as vaccine vaccine fatigue is excessive. For all of the {dollars} spent, proof from social and behavioural science must be mirrored within the messaging to make sure the adverts are as efficient as they are often.
Jessica Kaufman receives funding from the Victorian Division of Well being. She is Deputy Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation.
Margie Danchin receives funding from the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments, NHMRC, DFAT and WHO. She is Group Chief, Vaccine Uptake, MCRI.
