How Marketers Have the Worst Vaccine Persuasion Ideas
Listen to this article with extra commentary on my podcast.
Persuasion is not something people are naturally good at, even when they have careers that call for it.
Recently, business insider interviewed advertising executives in a piece titled “How to sell the vaccine to the unvaccinated, according to 6 advertising executives who are pros at persuasion”. For those who don’t subscribe you can see the six suggestions in this tweet thread.
As a serious practitioner and longtime student of persuasion I’ll start by saying how bad the ideas were.
Plus, the idea of marketers giving advice on how to persuade the public on medical procedures is unethical.
There are ethics when it comes to persuasion, as I outlined them in a recent podcast where I taught physicians how to use persuasion to help patients with successfully adopting lifestyle changes to prevent the onset of chronic disease.
It’s one thing when a doctor uses persuasion to help a patient with diabetes to stop drinking soda and adhere to a healthier lifestyle.
Marketers should not be giving out advice on how to persuade the public about medical decisions. Open, evidence-based public health education should be the goal.
That said, I can’t help but deconstruct these in an attempt to teach how persuasion works.
Let’s first start with some basics of persuasion for reference.
Persuasion Foundation
Robert Cialdini’s “Influence” is the foundation of persuasion and recently has a new edition out with a seventh principle.
Here are the six principles of influence:
- Reciprocity — I do something for you and you’ll be persuaded to do something for me
- Commitment & Consistency — We are often persuaded by being consistent to things we commit to. This increases with age.
- Liking — We are persuaded by people we like. Liking someone can come from how attractive they are, their similarity to us (e.g. culture or team), someone who compliments us, have the same ideologies, or are associated with trust due to conditioning (e.g. your mother).
- Authority — Anyone who has expertise and looks like they know what they’re doing. Titles and clothing have a lot to do with this. Physicians used to be persuasive but since being politicized in the past year their influence with the public has now been divided to whichever political or ideological team someone is on.
- Social Proof — We are persuaded by things that are popular and endorsed by popular people. If a cause has millions behind it plus celebrities (this has an element of authority) then we are more likely to be persuaded.
- Scarcity — We are drawn to things that are hard to come by and in limited supply
Cialdini recently added a seventh principle that was uncovered in the data of all his previous work; Unity.
Unity refers to a shared identity that both the influencer and influence are part of.
The more we perceive people are part of “us,” the more likely we are to be influenced by them.
A simple mnemonic to remember is RCLASS U. So we learn about persuasion in ou”R CLASS” at “U”niversity.
Along with Cialdini’s list I will also add Scott Adams’ persuasion stack from his book “Win Bigly.”
Scott Adams is a world famous cartoonist but also a trained hypnotist with a deep understanding of persuasion. He predicted Trump becoming president 2016 almost two years before the election.
His persuasion stack ranks from most persuasive to least. You’ll notice that the list ranks from things that are emotional and visual to things that are logical and oral.
- Big Fear
- Identity
- Smaller Fear
- Aspirations
- Habit
- Analogies
- Reason
- Hypocrisy
- Word-Thinking
Now that you have a basic foundation to anchor to, let’s deconstruct these six ideas from advertising execs.
One thing you will notice is that they all have a little bit of tactical persuasion but the foundation needed to effectively be persuasive at scale is missing.
References for my research are at the bottom of the article. Now let’s dive in….
Bad Idea 1: Humor & Puns
Humor is not persuasive as it puts people in a good mood and less likely to take action on something.
While humor is helpful when connecting with someone and getting them relaxed to let their guard down, it isn’t helpful when persuading the masses.
Humor can be used when amplifying contrast, as seen in the famous “Im a Mac, Im a PC” ad campaign where Apple contrasted the problems and shortcomings of Windows’ PC.
So what would be persuasive? The opposite of humor; fear.
Even the humorous ad campaign by Apple roots the persuasion in fear.
How?
By making their audience afraid of the risk that PCs come with as well as the identity they marketed (PC guy was nerdy, underwhelming, and unsuccessful).
Puns help with persuasion when it comes to rhyming, as we saw with Johnnie L. Cochran’s famous “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit” in the OJ Simpson trial.
However, by themselves they cannot persuade people into taking action.
Humor and puns are great for getting attention to lead to framing, improving recall, and anchoring. However, by themselves they cannot persuade.
Bad Persuasion 2: Using Unity at the Wrong Time
While on the surface you might think this is good persuasion, it actually isn’t.
Cialdini’s 7th principe (Unity) might seem to apply here but it is introduced too late to be persuasive with the audience and in the wrong context.
The reason is that while everyone might be unified on beating the virus, “how” that is done is what divides people into political factions.
This might have worked at the start of the pandemic where everyone was unified against an unknown.
Throughout human history, shared pain and fear has been a bonding agent, transforming identities into “we”-based concepts.
The start of the pandemic shows this. Other events would be September 11 and the Boston Marathon bombings.
There was unification around the fear of an unknown enemy and a shared pain.
However, that concept has transformed because of the amount of time that has elapsed. More is known meaning that there is less of a dark, unknown thing that hijacks our imaginations when we think about it.
With variability in outcomes (those who got the vaccine vs didnt), anecdotal stories, and politics, the unity we saw at the start of the pandemic has now divided itself into different tribes of thought.
Unifying all those tribes (for vs against mandatory vaccines) will be hard if not impossible without a new, unknown to unify in fear against.
Bad Persuasion 3: Trump and Identity
While adding Trump injects emotion into the conversation, it does so in the wrong way.
The moment you add a strong, divisive topic such as “Trump”, people will act emotionally. However, you’ve now used the Unity principle against yourself as people will divide into political groups and unify based on charged emotion.
Lee does have a good point about identity being an inhibiting factor as it is a powerful form of persuasion.
How you overcome this is? One way is showing attractive, healthy people of the same identity (in this case political) getting the vaccine vs ugly, unhealthy people not getting it.
Bad Persuasion 4: Converting Non-Believers
While it might feel this could work it actually persuades in the opposite direction.
A major theme of the pandemic is people becoming”sheep” and following orders without question.
Upon getting someone on the pro-vaccine team, it only persuades someone to dig in their heels as “another sheep” was converted.
People are hyper aware that they are under constant attack to be influenced and have become immune to simple persuasion tactics such as seeing someone with shared traits and views change.
Bad Persuasion 5: More Information
People are not rational. Showing more information does not help as there can never be enough information.
The time that information is persuasive is when it agrees with someones existing views.
Emotions persuade and information helps us feel like we made a logical, informed decision.
Bad Persuasion 6: Testimonials
Testimonials are powerful forms of persuasion depending on who you use. You can hit on authority bias, liking, social proof, identity and more.
So why is this bad persuasion?
Because testimonials in this case would only serve to persuade people on one team.
If you look at elections today, it’s less so about converting people to your team and more about persuading your own team to go out and vote.
Normally this idea could work but this far into things people are far more skeptical about what they see.
Final Thoughts
Persuasion must be used in the appropriate manner and with the understanding that there are ethical implications.
You have to use it responsibly.
If we truly want to follow the science, we must allow physicians and healthcare professionals to do their job. Work with their patients to provide information so they can make the right decision for them.
Persuasion or not, there’s never 100% adoption for anything.
Open, evidence-based public health education should be the goal of the medical community.
References
PUNS IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE: COGNITIVE ASPECT
The Effectiveness of Humor in Persuasion: The Case of Business Ethics Training
