Let me start with a disclaimer, so it is clear from the first line: I am not a doctor and this is not a medical article. I trust science and I trust doctors, and when my turn comes, I will get vaccinated. But for a few weeks now I have been following the vaccination debate, from here in Limassol, through my friends’ group chats back in Romania and on social media, with the eyes of someone who has spent his whole life in marketing and communication. And what I see is, above all, a big lesson about trust.
The vaccination campaign started across the European Union at the end of December, and in Romania on 27 December, with healthcare workers. January brought bookings for the second phase, with the usual hiccups, and then the news that manufacturers were delivering fewer doses than promised. Meanwhile, on Facebook and WhatsApp, everything went around: from microchip theories to messages “from a doctor friend” that nobody ever signed. I do not want to make fun of anyone. I want to understand why a false message travels faster than a true one.
Why fake news travels faster than the truth
From a marketer’s point of view, fake news is, unfortunately, a very well-made product. It has everything it needs to go viral:
- Emotion. Fear and outrage get shared far more easily than a table of data. A message that opens with “Do not vaccinate your kids before you read this” does not need arguments. It just needs a finger to hit “Forward”.
- Simplicity. Science says “probably”, “in the trials so far”, “we are still monitoring”. Rumour says “definitely”. Between nuance and certainty, a tired brain picks certainty.
- Distrust in institutions. If for years you have felt that the state does not tell you the truth or does not respect you, it is natural to be suspicious even when it tells you something that is good for you.
- Algorithms. Social networks reward what gets reactions, not what is true. More than a year ago I wrote about who decides what we see online, and the pandemic has put a magnifying glass on exactly that problem.
- Closed channels. In WhatsApp groups there are no comments to correct things, no context, no source. There is only “my aunt sent it”, and your aunt is someone you trust.
That last point matters most: people do not believe a message because it is convincing, but because they trust whoever sent it. And that is a communication lesson as old as the world.
Why official communication so often loses
I do not want to throw stones at the people who had to organise the largest vaccination campaign in decades, in record time. But as a marketer, I see a few mistakes that keep repeating, and not only in Romania:
- Jargon. Press releases written for other specialists, not for the person in the apartment block next door. If you have to read a sentence three times to understand it, you have already lost the audience.
- Arrogance. A “we know better, you just listen” tone turns someone with a question into someone with a doubt.
- Inconsistency. Different messages from different institutions, figures that change from one day to the next, promises that are not kept. Every contradiction is ammunition for rumours.
- Ignored questions. When officials do not answer a real question, someone else will. And it is usually not the right person.
There is one more mistake that many of us make, not just institutions: mockery. I have seen posts calling sceptics “stupid” or “uneducated”. I understand the frustration, but nobody has ever changed their mind because they were humiliated. Asking a question is not a crime. Worrying about your own health or your children’s is as human as it gets.
What good communication looks like
I do not have a magic formula, but I have a few principles I would apply to any campaign that depends on trust, whether it sells a product or tries to convince a whole country:
- Transparency about risks and about what we do not know yet. Paradoxically, admitting limits makes you look more credible, not weaker. “This is what we know, this is what we are still studying, this is what we are watching” is a sentence that builds trust.
- Trusted messengers, close to people. The family doctor, the local pharmacist, the priest, the teacher. Someone you know who answers your questions is worth more than ten TV ads.
- Answers, not lectures. Take the most common questions and answer them one by one, calmly, without making the person asking feel stupid.
- The same message, from everyone, every time. Consistency is boring, but it works. In marketing we say people need to hear a message many times before it sticks. If they hear something different every time, the only thing that sticks is confusion.
- Data explained simply. Not numbers thrown on a screen, but the story behind them: what it means for me, for my parents, for my neighbourhood.
The business lesson: trust is built before the crisis
This is the part that concerns me directly as an entrepreneur. Everything we are seeing on a large scale happens on a small scale inside every company. Trust is not built on the day you need it. It is built in the years before, with every order delivered on time, every complaint handled honestly, every promise kept.
Let’s say you run an online store and one day a rumour spreads that your products are counterfeit. If you have communicated openly for years, if customers know you as someone who admits mistakes and fixes them, the rumour dies quickly, because people defend you on their own. If you have been opaque, arrogant or inconsistent, the rumour becomes the truth in their minds, no matter how many statements you put out afterwards.
With Știri de Bine (the good-news website I ran in Romania) I learned something similar: good news needs credibility more than any other kind, because audiences are used to thinking that good news is suspicious. Credibility cannot be bought with a clever headline. It is earned over time, with patience.
What each of us can do
You do not have to be a minister to help. Each of us is somebody’s “family doctor”, meaning the person a friend, a mother or a colleague trusts. A few simple things:
- Before forwarding a message, ask yourself who wrote it and where it comes from. If it has no source, do not send it.
- When someone you love has doubts, hear them out before you answer. Then send them to their doctor, not to a link.
- Do not ridicule people who ask questions. Mockery pushes them straight into the arms of those selling fear.
- State your own decision simply, without preaching. Sometimes the most convincing argument is “I read up, I talked to my doctor, and I am going to get vaccinated”.
Last spring I saw how much communities that help each other really matter. Trust between people was the most valuable resource back then. It is the same now.
Closing thoughts
This pandemic has shown us that accurate information is not enough unless it is also credible, clear and delivered with respect. That goes for governments, for companies and for each of us. I believe in science, I believe in doctors, and I believe we can get through this too, but only if we talk with each other, not over each other.
How have you seen the vaccination communication so far? What convinced you, what pushed you away, and what would you actually like to hear from the people making the decisions?