Simplicity, Clarity, Normalcy (a.k.a., We, the Simple).

Here’s the number to fix in your mind with all the sticking power of a Gorilla Glue hairdo: 231,994,000.

As you, brilliantly perceptive reader, will have brilliantly perceived, that figure represents about 70 percent of 331+ million—the current US population.  Epidemiologically speaking, it’s also the number of our fellow country persons who need to be made COVID-safe for RTN‚ the return to normal.

Picture something better than an end to mask breath or, worse, mask acne. Instead, imagine sitting at a bar, sipping a perfectly chilled martini courtesy of a mixologist who deeply understands that more than a molecule of vermouth is a sin against civilization. Carefree, you’re casually snacking on the free nuts.

The technical name for this blessed state is “nirvana.”  And it’s just as close (or as far away) as getting enough needles in arms so we get to “herd” —or, as it’s more softly known— “community-immunity.” 

But enough of this semantic dither. Instead, let’s talk about what it will take to get us to 231M and, along the way, why a country so jam-packed with gifted marketers has entirely missed the main chance to accelerate everything from mask utilization to vaccine adoption?

Spoiler alert: the most powerful lever in the behavioral marketing toolkit is a single, exquisitely simple word. “We.”

That’s because “we”, manifested in the form of what the legendary behavioral scientist Robert Cialdini terms “social influence,” has been highly effective in motivating elusive and resistant audiences to adopt behaviors and actions they might otherwise never entertain. Red, blue, purple, or in between.

All because, consistent with Mr. Maslow and his famous hierarchy, we share a very human desire to fit in with our family, our compatriots, and society.

This ain’t speculation, alchemy or wishful thinking. And the real question is why you see this approach entirely absent from the COVID-19 health marketing mix. All in pursuit of what sources as diverse as McKinsey to the Kaiser Family Foundation tell us will be the 25 – 30% of the “vaccine hesitant” who will leave us either 10 points shy of national immunity, or right at the winning number.

That’s not to say there’s hasn’t been powerful messaging: From Pfizer’s “remember normal” campaign to the Ad Council’s “It’s Up to You” to CNN’s “a mask says something about the person who doesn’t wear it,” there’s been plenty of advertising out there.

All of it a lecture. All of it trying to make a point. Some ingenious, some not so much. But almost none of it leveraging the fact that 75 million people participated in the clinical trials, with amazing efficacy and utterly rare side effects.  And that we’re now up to 2 million injected every day -- folks like thee and me. Potentially representing the full spectrum of attitudes, ideologies, and geographies.

And who are available to help create what the remarkable creative thinker Bob Brihn calls, “a community of acceptance.” 

Simplicity and clarity tell us it’s time for a little less “thou shalt,” and a whole lot more of “we can.”

PS. The solid fact, which The Reductionist has tested his own damn self, is that social influence works.  The proof came in the form of an emergency energy conservation campaign we worked on that got people to stay home and sweat during a brutal heatwave—blackouts avoided.  Here’s one of the spots.