Why we haven't seen many Indian ads tackling vaccine hesitancy.

Vaccines became available in India at a comparatively late date. And even then, demand outstripped supply. In such a scenario, it did not make?sense to encourage people to go for the jab. The more immediate and easily available protection against Covid was the humble mask. And despite the rules in place about its required use and its importance being stressed through various channels, many people still did not wear one. Or did not wear one properly. These factors came together to prompt advertising to focus on the importance of masks rather than vaccines.

?Later, when India’s vaccination programme started gaining momentum, some brands did put out messages encouraging vaccination. The most moving one was Facebook’s video in which a young man called Rizwan tries to persuade?an elderly lady to get vaccinated. She is most reluctant. And he is equally determined. Their relationship evolves and the story progresses to a moving end.

?Another piece of communication that I found impactful was the one released by Ghadi detergent. It made a powerful connection between the polio vaccine of yesteryears and the Covid vaccine of today.

Of course, there is a lot more room for communication to help overcome vaccine hesitancy. Many agencies, including ours, have proposed the idea to clients and presented scripts too. Ultimately, a brand has to back this kind of messaging for it to see the light of day. The other route is the NGO one—but these organisations generally lack the resources to sustain such a campaign.

Brands need to be convinced that dispelling vaccine hesitancy will have a positive rub-off on them. Also, I suspect that the vaccine hesitancy prevalent in the general populace is present among brand owners as well. So, in a curious way, vaccine hesitancy is itself partly responsible for the lack of messaging to combat vaccine hesitancy.

That's another barrier that needs to be crossed.

—Sumanto Chattopadhyay

A part of this writeup recently appeared as my quote to The Drum.