We knew we had a job on our hands to persuade people to take a vaccine.
Vaccine hesitancy had been on the rise for years in western democracies and the United Nations have declared it to be one of the planets top global health threats; Covid jabs had been developed ten times faster than other comparable vaccines causing people to be wary of their safety; and less than half of the UK population said they wanted a vaccine despite the perilous position we were in as a country.
Just 5 months later, according to research by YouGov, the UK had become the most positive country about vaccines in the world.
But how?
Dialogue not monologue
Entrepreneurs I’ve worked with, often must deal with a level of scepticism about them, their product, their business and sometimes all three. Often this scepticism can be dealt with by communicating with confidence, clarity, and certainty but that wasn’t an approach available to us.
Instead, we wanted people to know it was ok to have questions. It was ok to seek out the right answers for you and your family. It was ok to be hesitant.
In a world in which we are used to getting the answers to our questions in milliseconds from Google, Siri or Alexa, it would have been foolish not to have been open and transparent. If we had tried to use the power and resources of government to control and hector - when the same resources could be directed to helping people find the right answers to their questions - we would have failed.
There was a level of risk attached to our strategy. The science was rapidly evolving; what experts knew about Covid-19 changed as the virus continued to mutate. We were not operating in a world of certainty but one of ambiguity and immense complexity. Often, we (the scientists, doctors, clinicians as well as ministers) simply did not know the answers to some questions which could have easily become an additional source of scepticism or a reason for outright rejection.
What our approach did require was a level of vulnerability that government communicators (and particularly ministers) are not always comfortable with. They are used to dealing with absolutes - black and white, not shades of grey. But with vulnerability and humility comes trust from those you are communicating with, and the scepticism begins to dissipate.
Everyone is unique
Underpinning our broad approach was a set of messages focussed in tone and language on what the audience needed to hear based on their unique circumstances. This was a rejection of some in government who had been advocating mandatory vaccines for all and an assertive culture war with the anti-vaxxers.
After the initial rollout success of December and January there were concerns from some (mostly the media) that things were not going as quickly as they could. Certainly, there was deeper hesitancy in some communities, including those who had suffered more than most as Covid surged through the population. This was why every single source of hesitancy was identified either through research or by having in-depth conversations with people through a programme of virtual town hall engagement events.
Happily, I soon noticed what we had set running was getting a life of its own repeated back to me by friends and family. The message “Vaccines are our way out” was first deployed as our lead message primarily by ministers and clinicians on broadcast media. Having it repeated back was evidence that it was seeping into the popular consciousness and the daily vernacular.
The right spokespeople
Government is big, clunky, and run by politicians who are even less trusted than tabloid journalists. Which made choosing the right spokespeople to share information, have a conversation with, and ultimately persuade the hesitant was vital for the campaign’s success.
Our approach of dialogue not monologue made this final part relatively easy to do - particularly when accepting the fact that we humans are more likely to listen to advice if it comes from someone that looks and sounds like us.
While ministers would undertake the morning broadcast round, they were rarely at the top of the list to engage directly with hesitant audiences. Instead, we made sure that the information – the answers to many of the questions that were front of mind for most people – was freely available for a vast range of partner organisations such as faith and community groups, sports clubs, or local authorities.
By making sure that people you trusted – whether you were a mother of two from Surrey or a grandfather of seven from Leeds – could give you the answers you needed to your questions we were able to reduce hesitancy very rapidly and lead the western world in vaccine deployment.
Next time you need to persuade someone who is sceptical, communicating with confidence and clarity may not be the best tactic.
Perhaps having a genuine conversation and listening to their concerns may well be a better long-term approach.