In Brief: Brands Urge Consumers to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine; Companies Face a New Era of Scrutiny on Political Activity

Brands are encouraging consumers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine with ads that convey a similar message: Get the shot, so we can return to normal.

As CNBC reports, Budweiser released an ad on April 7 that begins with the line “Remember this?” and then shows user-generated photographs of people drinking beer together. As Jimmy Durante sings “I’ll Be Seeing You,” the ad ends with the words: “Good times are coming. Now we have a shot.”

Many companies are dependent on the economy opening up and have vested interests in seeing consumers vaccinated, said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University. And if brands want “to be seen as giving back and contributing to society, this is a pretty safe place to go.”

Google recently released an ad called “Get back to what you love,” which ends with someone typing the search phrase “covid vaccine near me.” Walgreens has launched a campaign featuring singer John Legend, who says “This is our shot at getting back together.”

As companies reevaluate their role in the political sphere, a new report by The Conference Board highlights considerations and best practices regarding corporate political activity.

While companies have long engaged in politics, a new era of stakeholder scrutiny, social media and political polarization has propelled corporate political activity — and the risks that come with it — into the spotlight. Political activity can pose increasingly significant risks for companies, including the perception that political contributions — and other forms of activity — are at odds with core company values. In this new era, careful preparation, close coordination, and effective communication both internally and externally are key.

“The environment for corporate political activity is becoming exponentially more complex,” said Paul Washington, report co-author and executive director of The Conference Board ESG Center. “Companies are being asked to engage on more issues, through more mechanisms, and at more levels of government than ever before. Every action is being scrutinized in a polarized environment. This may be a time for companies to streamline their political activity as much as possible, focusing on what truly matters and reducing their risk profile.”

Volkswagen’s April Fools’ Prank Misfires With Reporters

Volkswagen’s early April Fools’ joke that it was changing its name to “Voltswagen” misfired with journalists and others, according to USA Today. The German automaker’s March 29 announcement, which appeared briefly on its U.S. media site, said the new name showed the company’s commitment to a future of electric vehicles.

Volkswagen assured reporters the announcement was not a joke, and major media outlets reported the news. But the next day, two days before April 1, Volkswagen said it was not changing its name after all. The announcement had been made “in the spirit of April Fools’ Day” to spotlight Volkswagen’s new, all-electric SUV model, a company spokesperson said.

After pleading guilty in 2017 to deceiving regulators and the public about emission levels from its diesel models, “Volkswagen is the last company that should be playing around with deceiving people,” Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor, said of the prank. A spokesperson for Gannett newspapers said Volkswagen had used its fake announcement “to manipulate respected reporters” and draw attention to its marketing campaign.

Research: Mainstream News Coverage of Coronavirus Has Been Misleadingly Negative

Major media outlets in the United States have distorted their coronavirus coverage by emphasizing the negative, even when scientific developments have been positive, new research finds. 

As The New York Times reports, Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed when watching CNN and PBS in 2020 that when cases were falling, news coverage focused on locations where cases were rising. News media also downplayed positive results in vaccine research, he said.

Sacerdote and other researchers built a database of coronavirus reporting from hundreds of news sources in the United States and overseas. Last year, about 87 percent of the coverage in national U.S. media was negative, compared to 64 percent in scientific journals, 53 percent in U.S. regional media and 51 percent in international media, the researchers found.

For reporters, healthy skepticism can turn into reflexive cynicism and inaccurate coverage, The New York Times wrote. For their part, Sacerdote said, audiences of major media “like negativity in their stories.”