How do we get anti-vaxxers to vaccinate? - opinion

These days, political and commercial campaigns do not use a single message for a single population. Instead, each campaign consists of dozens of secondary campaigns that appeal to different people with different messages. In many campaigns, we target group influencers so they will pass it on to our target audience. For example, a campaign that addresses your friends to encourage you to vote for a candidate is necessarily more effective than a campaign that directly addresses you.

However, even though the technology exists, countries have failed to take advantage of the technological capabilities to defeat coronavirus.

Immunizing the whole population is the only way to defeat COVID and make it possible for the countries to reopen the economy and remove most virus-related restrictions.

The main obstacle that stands in their way is the crowd of citizens who have chosen not to get vaccinated.

But why do citizens insist on escaping vaccination? After all, scientific evidence proves that the vaccine does not harm their health and the economic price to be paid is by far less than that caused by the pandemic!

Two possible answers come to mind: the citizens do not appreciate the personal benefits of being vaccinated or people are simply afraid of vaccines, having listened to fake news and false accusations that created the impression that those may endanger their health or quality of life.

Current technology makes it possible to reach a substantial group of unvaccinated people on social media and clarify to them, in a focused manner, why they need to be vaccinated. Yet, countries have not taken this path.

Given that encouraging immunization among the unvaccinated is the only way to put an end to the COVID crisis, we wonder why countries have not invested in reaching out to the unvaccinated and in persuading them by refuting the fake accusations related to the vaccine and by emphasizing the positive value of immunization for individuals, their families, and their country. This is what social responsibility is all about.

It is high time to take this course, keeping in mind that the days when the same candidate or product could be sold to the entire population through the same ad are over.

If we are to achieve this all-important goal of our times, we must harness the available technological capabilities to segment the population and address dozens of audiences with the relevant message.

Countries worldwide must carry out targeted data-based campaigns to encourage all citizens who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated immediately.

If we borrow the existing capability from political campaigns, we can use it to appeal to different groups of unvaccinated people with additional relevant messages. For example, young people who have not been vaccinated will want to hear more about the vaccine’s benefits in places of entertainment, vacations and flights. However, some of these young people will also want to get more facts about the safety of vaccines and about the risks to which they expose their parents by not getting vaccinated.

Older people will need to get a different message – about the importance of the vaccine for their family life, removing the fear of fake news of diseases caused by the vaccines and more.

Instead of blaming Facebook and Twitter for spreading false information about the vaccines, governments are the ones who should fight to encourage immunization by making use of Facebook and Twitter for their ends. Governments are the ones who can and must map every Facebook group where anti-vaccine advocates chat and target the exact same people with clear medical and scientific information that refutes the lies and explains the importance of vaccines.

These campaigns need to address, in a targeted manner, also the targeted people’s families, the places where they work and spend their leisure time, and also any person who is capable of influencing them.

This mission is the only way to defeat COVID and it is up to every country to meet this worthy goal.

Srulik Einhorn is the founder of perception.media, a strategic consultant and creative director to world leaders, including former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Jonatan Urich, of perception.media, is an expert in strategic messaging, crisis management and has also worked with Netanyahu.