Sally Dibb, Professor of Marketing and Society from Coventry University believes the British Government’s messaging around coronavirus has been very complicated.
Sputnik: What messaging should the Government use to make their guidance clearer?
Professor Sally Dibb: Well, I think that we're all aware now that there's an awful lot of public confusion around the complex messaging that's been put out in relation to coronavirus and the fact that messaging has changed a lot. And that's before we even get to the fact that there seem to be very many different versions in different parts of the country and in different nations as well. So, my article [Where the UK Government is going wrong in its coronavirus messaging] really was focusing on the fact that there is quite a bit that the Government, I think, could learn from the way businesses message in relation to their brands and products. And they follow some very simple methods, simple messaging approaches, really. And I suppose the first two that are perhaps the most important are to keep it simple, and to be consistent.
So, in terms of simplicity, we know that the best messages are really simple, they're really short and easy to remember. And they work best if they're meaningful to the people that they're aimed at. In a branding sense, some good examples would be things such as BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine” or Apple's “Think Differently”, or McDonald's “I'm lovin' it”. You know, those are all short, simple messages that the public recognises, and understands.
But unfortunately, the kind of messaging we've seen the Government put in place around coronavirus has been really complicated. It hasn't really followed that simplicity rule; some of the things we've seen recently are simple - things such as "Hands. Face. Space" is pretty good. It's easy to remember, and people know what it means. But if we look at some of the other guidance, it's much more complicated. So even the so-called simple Rule of Six is something people have struggled with, because there seem, even in normal circumstances, to be many exceptions. And then in areas where there are greater types of lockdown, those will seem to go out of the window. And there's a whole series of other variations that come into play. So I think it's really difficult for the public to understand what the messaging is.
Sputnik: Do you think the Government’s confusing messaging has lost public trust?
Prof Dibb: Yeah. I think that's a really interesting question because we know that if the public is going to follow the guidelines, they need to trust the Government. And I think there have been a number of things that have undermined the public's trust in Government and in the messaging. And, you know, some of those are very well known. We all know about the Dominic Cummings incident and the fact that there seem to be certain people in Government who are behaving in ways that don't follow the guidelines, and then they don't necessarily seem to be accountable for that. And, of course, we saw the recent example, that's broken today about the SNP MP. So those sort of things undermine the integrity of governments, and people start to believe that they are being asked to follow the rules that perhaps people in Government aren't prepared to follow themselves. So that's a real problem, because the less the public trusts the governments, the less likely they are to follow the rules. And we know that right now, it's absolutely critical that the public is prepared to follow the public-health rules.
Sputnik: Is there any aspect of the Government’s marketing throughout the pandemic that has been effective?
Prof Dibb: I think that's also a good question. It's interesting that right, early on, just before we went into lockdown, the Government had the slogan, “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives”. I think that notion of protecting the NHS was very keenly felt since people love the NHS. And, you know, most people can remember quite clearly what that message was, and why it was important. But I think it was strange that the Government then moved very quickly away from that. So, you know, just a couple of months later, they seem to ditch the whole "Protect the NHS" thing and moved on to tell us to “Stay Alert”, which I still have no idea what that requires me to do as a public-health message. Recently we've returned to the “Save the NHS, protect the NHS” theme. So I think there have been some nuggets of good sense in some of the messaging. The problem has been that they haven't been followed through and the Government hasn't built on that messaging.