The Marketing of Health vs Economy

What is the marketing of health vs economy?

Think about it. Marketing is creating want. We all want to hold on to our health and the health of our loved ones and friends. We also want to hold onto our jobs, companies, and the lifestyle we’ve had for most of our lives if it has been a good one.

Until early this year, this equation of health, lifestyle, and economy has been moving along at a pretty stable rate. The stock market gave us a snapshot of how the World’s economic systems were rolling and we could depend on that to forecast future economic upticks or downturns for decades.

We called this “normal” and we could all adapt to changes as long as they didn’t upset the future stability of expansion and individual health and welfare too drastically. Governments marketed and promoted their changes to policies with “this will be good for us all” or “this will be bad for us all”. The marketing of our health and economy has been fairly easy to understand and implement. Until now.

Which comes first? Health or the Economy? The chicken or the egg?

The argument ensues from scientists, doctors, politicians, and the public.

The scientists are clearly promoting to listen to what they have to say and the doctors agree that if we are going to rid ourselves of this pandemic, we’re going to have to stay at least six feet from each other and wear masks. Easy enough to understand. But for how long? Until the rate of infection is 2-5% which means “most” of us will not contract this disease.

The politicians seem to be split on this way of ridding ourselves of Covid-19. Some want the public to adhere to science and some want the “herd immunity” concept to allow a majority to contract the virus and the sooner the better. Why? To get back to work and rebuild the economy. This concept may be looking at “the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens.”

The only way to find out which group of citizens want which solution seems to be to throw it into the election and let that decision be the “majority”.

Without a healthy society, businesses can not resume for fear of more widespread infections and deaths worldwide. So, why is there an argument to just go back to work and “let ‘er rip!”? The argument can be made and “argument” in this case is the “marketing” of the viewpoint that if we don’t restart and rekindle the failing economies throughout the world, the atmosphere of economic collapse will run too wide making any recovery almost impossible and will throw the world population into a depression as never been experienced before on this planet.

After listening to so many viewpoints about Covid-19, herd immunity, the vaccine, civil unrest, and politics it has thrown a wrench into how to make a clear decision of a path to take. There has been misinformation, hidden data, arguments, and no real leadership as to whether or not to wear a mask. From a marketing standpoint, the media has done what it is very good at – stirring the pot of unrest with contra-survival information and a constant alarm going off in any direction the public looks.

The Vaccine.

The marketing of health has an element of the Covid-19 vaccine. There has not been clear marketing of this to convince the public to “want” to have it for the sake of avoiding the disease. Again, science has come under fire by politics indirectly through leadership giving the public the idea it will be “rushed” to market. The scientists say it will take much longer to have a safe and effective serum while the government in power stands in opposition to this timetable.

There have been many other elements thrown into this year that are of great concern; the “Black Lives Matter” movement, Conspiracy theories, white supremacists, and voter fraud.

The bottom line as I see it is without our health we can not expand our economy and move our society forward with fresh creativity. Our health will make us physically strong enough to look out into the future and not within a sick body.

What are your thoughts?