R&R Partners: Build the Brand, Protect the Brand

A couple of weeks ago, I had the following conversation with my youngest son:

Me: Are you going to get the H1N1 vaccine?

Son: No.

Me: Why not? You’re in the high-risk group (he’s 24).

Son: The government rushed the vaccine out too fast. I don’t trust it. I’ll take my chances with the disease.

Me: Oh. OK.

I also had a talk with his older brother, also in the high-risk group. It went about the same way. Then I see a story in our local newspaper about health care workers being the first to receive the vaccine here in Las Vegas and that many of them are resisting. And I’m thinking, “If professional health care workers don’t want to take this vaccine, what does that say about it?”

The screenwriter William Goldman once famously said about executives in the Hollywood film industry, “Nobody knows anything.” Unfortunately, that seems to be the place we’ve arrived as a country regarding the new flu.

“Do I get one shot, or two?” “Is the nasal spray as effective?” “Do I also get the regular flu shot?” “How sick can I get?” “Supposedly, it’s about the same as regular flu; no big deal.” “I read that older people might be immune already. Really?”

And on and on it goes. Many questions. Many rumors. Much speculation. Not a lot of answers. Not a lot of official communication. Of course, if one makes a huge effort to find information, there’s plenty of it out there.

Our Human Resources director sends out a new missive
almost weekly on measures to prevent infection, differentiating H1N1 from regular flu and so on. It’s good information and I’m paying attention. But then I turn on the television, pick up a newspaper, or look around the Web myself and confusion continues to reign supreme.

In our world of mass communication, we try to focus on the One Thing. It’s the unifying idea or position that we want our audience to take away from the communication. Unfortunately, our country’s public health communicators don’t seem to have settled on One Thing regarding H1N1. Instead, there seem to be many things out there. It’s as if this strain of the flu caught them by surprise, and the anarchy of public discussion (and hysteria) has overtaken an orderly official communication. I’m not really sure why. H1N1 didn’t sneak up on us.

I do know that efforts are being made. There is a public campaign in development right now in Nevada. Yet, we also just received an RFP from the state of California to bid on a contract for an H1N1 campaign in our country’s largest state, population-wise. They’re just now sending out the RFP? By the time the bureaucrats in Sacramento actually choose a marketing firm, the campaign will have been presented, revised, revised again, revised a third time, funded and launched, and the History Channel will be airing its first retrospective on the H1N1 Pandemic of ’09.

The irony is, a few years ago we were involved in a number of presentations for campaigns regarding an outbreak of Bird Flu, just in case we had one. We worked on ideas for a federal campaign and one for the Arizona Department of Health Services. Thankfully, those campaigns weren’t needed. But the thinking was done well in advance.

What happened this time? Did we take our eye off the ball? Were we so obsessed with a presidential election and a near breakdown of our economic system that it just didn’t occupy our minds? Are our public health budgets – federally and locally – so strained that there were no resources available to create and run a smart, unified, calm campaign that gave people answers and helped squelch rumors?

I have nothing but respect for the people who work in public health. Lord knows, they have enough on their plates without worrying about advertising, public relations and other campaigns to keep the panic level down regarding the flu. They are doctors and scientists, up to their necks doing the things doctors and scientists do. Thankfully.

But knowledge, and facts, can be a powerful and effective medicine as well. The public can be a very strong ally in preventing needless panic and paranoia if they know the facts. Separating the truth from the rumors can be as effective as separating the sick from the healthy.

Truth is good medicine.