The Top 5 COVID-19 Marketing Strategies

The staying power of the belief that COVID-19 is a widespread, deadly scourge has less to do with the true danger of the virus than it has to do with how well it continues to be marketed. While the country has gotten to the point where most people know someone who has been sick with the illness, and many know (or know of) someone who has died with the virus (these numbers only go up, of course), the effective creation of panic and fear in the minds of Americans has everything to do with marketing and selling the idea of COVID-19 as continuous clear and present danger.

While not exhaustive, here are the top five marketing strategies used to keep you buying what they’re selling:

1: USP – Unique Selling Proposition. The USP myth is best demonstrated every time Apple releases a new phone, as they run commercials promoting a “new” feature and count on the fact that regular folks don’t know technology well enough to know that Samsung phones had the “new” feature last year. The experts did the same thing with the novel coronavirus. From the beginning, fear mongers in government and media sold it as not only novel in its biological makeup, but entirely unique in the way it spreads, the severity of infection, and the ways it could be slowed down. Asymptomatic spread and respiratory droplets became catchphrases to sell us on compliance. Somehow this new virus entirely rewrote the rules of what to expect from respiratory viruses, opening us up to entirely rewriting the rules on government intervention and power over our lives.

2. Puffery: Much like an illustration of a Jew in pre-World War Two Germany, these same COVID salesmen immediately began claiming – apart from any real evidence – that the virus would become a killer of millions – thus anyone not obeying their mitigation orders was complicit in this killing. Anyone caught living their life in a mostly-normal manner was killing grandma. Those questioning the official government scarritive were called selfish, murders, and science deniers. This was despite the fact that the data (science) called for healthy skepticism. This was most laughably demonstrated by our own governor, who labeled going to Thanksgiving dinner without the requisite social isolation as “bringing a pistol for Grandma’s head.”

3. Encouraging Narcissism: From the insufferable we’re all in this together hashtags to the heroic status granted to every Netflix binger supportive of lockdowns, the self-congratulatory narcissist found yet another useful platform in the novel coronavirus. Every worn out, self-focused trope on social media roared back to life with the simple addition of “during COVID-19,” and the addition of a mask to every played-out meme gave it new life and the sharer a new reason to shout “look at me!” Every good marketer knows that it’s much easier to sell a product if it’s all about me.

4. Bandwagon Effect: Everyone has an iPhone – you have to have an iPhone! How much easier is it to convince someone to go along when everyone else is doing it? How much easier still when the unpopular people on the outside are killers? Marketers have used peer pressure for as long as marketing has existed, and the last thing anyone wants to be is the person everyone focuses on for being outside the group – or in this case, against the group.

5. Desire for Consequence: We have all heard someone say, “the world has never been this bad!” or “You don’t know what it was like to live back when I was your age!” The human psyche has a deep and ingrained need for significance and consequence, and very few things fulfill this more completely than the knowledge that not only did you survive a once-in-a-generation pandemic, you heroically saved lives by going along with what you were told. Everything was growing stale until this new struggle and purpose for existence came into your life.

These are just the tip of the iceberg for what we are sure will keep sociologists and psychologists busy for decades to come. We are sure you’ve recognized this behavior in others – maybe even in yourself. We know we have. It’s time to unplug from the sales narrative and stop buying what they are selling.