My Vaccine Selfie is More Powerful Than any Government PSA
Battling COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy with Personal Testimonials
I’m typically not big on promoting my picture online. It’s not that I’m against social media; I’m not like the more reclusive members of my family who make J. D. Salinger look like Pewdiepie. It’s just that I like to keep my self-image in reserve, partly because I enjoy a small amount of privacy, partly because I want to control my personal branding, and partly because I desperately need to lose another 20 pounds.
Not today. Today, I’m posting my vaccine selfie. I waited for it. I earned it. And dammit, I’m proud of it. More importantly, it’s my patriotic duty.
I realized this after I saw the February report from the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor, an ongoing research project by the Kaiser Family Foundation tracking the public’s attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines. Whereas the number of US adults taking a “wait and see” approach before getting the vaccine dropped from 31% in January to 22% in February, a persistent one-fifth would only get the vaccine if required to, if they got it at all.
Who are these holdouts?
The Monitor found that nearly four in ten Republicans and three in ten rural residents said they would either “definitely not” get vaccinated or would do so only if required. Black and Hispanic adults continued to be more likely than White adults to take a “wait and see” approach.
In another national poll, the de Beaumont Foundation found that 41% of US adults were “absolutely certain” they would get the vaccine, but these numbers were lower for women (29%), Black Americans age 18–49 (28%), Republicans 18–49 (27%), and rural Americans (26%). A recent CBS poll found that partisanship, not race or ethnicity, made the most difference in terms of vaccine hesitancy. 71% of Democrats either already had the vaccine or were willing to get it, compared to only 47% for Republicans.
The polls show that many are afraid of perceived vaccine side effects, anxious about missing work, worried that the vaccine might give them COVID-19, and anxious that they might have to pay out-of-pocket costs. Furthermore, many Black and Hispanic adults reported they were not confident that the vaccines had been adequately tested for safety and efficacy among their own racial or ethnic groups.
What is the truth about coronavirus vaccines?
The COVID-19 vaccines are indeed safe and effective. According to the CDC, millions of people in the US have received the vaccine under the most intense safety monitoring in US history. Even though the vaccines were developed in record time, the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines still went through all four phases of clinical trials required by the FDA. The vaccines do not have a live virus and therefore can NOT make one sick with COVID-19. The mRNA in the vaccines never enters the nucleus of the cell, therefore the vaccines can NOT alter one’s DNA. The clinical trials for the first two vaccines included underrepresented minorities as 25% of participants. Side effects typically last no more than a couple of days, compared to the 540,000 deaths already associated with the coronavirus.
How do we shift public opinion?
How do we convince the skeptics, the hesitant, and the misinformed? How do we achieve the 70% vaccination rate necessary for herd immunity?
Typically, such a widespread public health campaign would rely on Public Service Announcements. In late February of this year, the Ad Council launched their “It’s Up to You” campaign, encouraging people to get the latest vaccine information, and providing a plethora of information, including how the vaccine was approved for use, how safe it is, what to expect, and whether or not it protects against new variants. Separate television, radio, and print ads targeted Black and Hispanic/Latino audiences. And in an appeal to our patriotic nature, former presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Carter encouraged us to get vaccinated to end the pandemic and move the country forward.
On the surface, the “It’s Up to You” campaign contains many elements of an effective PSA campaign. It provides a simple branded message and a memorable tagline. It runs across multiple platforms and targets the 40% of Americans who remain undecided about getting vaccinated. It addresses vaccine hesitancy and encourages people to seek their own answers from reputable sources. Nonetheless, this campaign is likely doomed to failure.
First of all, the campaign lacks true emotional appeal. Any good public campaign, be it anti-smoking, environmental protection or vaccination has to reach the audience at a visceral level. A 2009 study of nearly 1500 adult smokers found that smokers exposed to highly emotional and personal testimonial ads were significantly more likely to quit smoking.
A 2010 study from Washington State University demonstrated that emotional messaging significantly influences attitudes about environmental protection. Although “It’s Up to You” reaches for pathos with its reminders of what normalcy might look like in the future, its pitch needs to be much stronger. It needs to punch us in the gut. It needs to make us afraid of NOT getting the vaccine.
Second, the campaign lacks peer relatability. Studies have shown that advice coming from peers is much more persuasive than advice coming from experts. Research into peer messaging has already been done with anti-smoking campaigns.
A 2016 study out of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania had over 1,000 adult smokers respond to multiple anti-smoking PSA messages. It found, not surprisingly, that PSAs with expert “persuaders” were not nearly as effective or engaging as PSAs with “peer smokers.”
In addition, a 2007 study at the University of Georgia showed that anti-smoking ads are most effective when they convince kids that their friends are also listening to the ads. The study authors said, “What we’ve found is that it doesn’t necessarily matter how your friends respond to the ads, but how you think your friends are responding.”
More importantly, PSA messaging from authoritative experts can have a boomerang effect and actually increase the undesired behavior. The University of Georgia study found that the more often students were exposed to anti-smoking messages, the more inclined they were to smoke unless they believed their friends were influenced by the messages. And in a classic example of “what not to do,” tobacco company Philip Morris’s 1998 anti-smoking campaign “Think. Don’t Smoke” had the unfortunate effect of actually encouraging smoking.
Bringing this back to the coronavirus, a focus group of vaccine-hesitant GOP voters was conducted earlier this month and sponsored by the de Beaumont Foundation. The participants all believed the coronavirus threat was real, but they blamed their vaccine hesitancy on factors like the unknown long-term effects of new vaccines.
Participants said they wanted straight talk, and they didn’t trust politicians or government scientists. “We want to be educated, not indoctrinated,” one man said. Another woman said, “What I don’t trust is the government telling me what I need to do when they haven’t led us down the right road.” These GOP voters did not want to see pro-vaccine ads with politicians, not even ads with Donald Trump. What they wanted was information coming straight from their own doctors.
People trust information from people they trust.
So where does that leave us?
Can Internet influencers who create personal connections with their fans provide a broad message penetration with perceived authenticity? Should vaccine-savvy content creators steal the playbook from the anti-vaxxers and provide personal testimony, coordinate messaging, bust open myths, and shift national opinion? Or will true acceptance of the coronavirus vaccine only come from direct personal testimony? Friend to friend. Peer to peer.
If so, here is my personal testimony. Due to COVID-19, I’ve face-timed with my wife and left meals outside her door while she was in quarantine. I’ve worried helplessly from a distance as relatives with pre-existing conditions battled the disease. I‘ve sympathized with my siblings who had to oversee their kids’ online schooling while working full-time from home. I’ve grieved when my father-in-law succumbed to the disease and died in a nursing home. I’ve watched the national mortality rate steadily increase, and I’ve waited patiently, then impatiently, then angrily for our country to regain its footing.
You damn betcha I got my coronavirus vaccine. My selfie is my proof, my affirmation, and my prayer.
