Plandemic, an explosive, documentary-style video about COVID-19, spread online like wildfire. Despite its outlandish claims and obvious falsehoods, plenty of Americans were taken in by it. Because it had what so many wanted — a salacious web of conspiracy theories implicating governments, media, and public health experts — and what they needed: a story they could latch onto.

The following piece served as the basis of an Aug. 6, 2020, Purple Strategies webinar with Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University, and Purple’s Denise Brien, Alec Jacobs and Meghan Moran. A recording of the webinar is available here. 

 

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Telling Stories to Explain Our World

What we know of the global COVID-19 pandemic inspires fear: millions of confirmed cases, a death toll in the hundreds of thousands, near-record unemployment, entire industries devastated. And what we don’t know suggests chaos, a world out of control: continuing questions about how the virus is transmitted and who is most at risk, uncertainty about treatments or prevention, when we can return to normalcy, or even what “normal” will mean in a post-pandemic world.

Making Sense of the World Through Stories

It’s natural that most of us are trying to make sense of the situation and navigate this chaos as best we can.

In this regard, our collective effort to process what the pandemic means and respond to it is nothing new – people strive to make sense of chaotic situations. We bring, or assert, order to our world so that we know how to function in it. The pandemic, compounded by civil unrest, political discord, climate change, and a range of other issues, makes this particular time feel more uncertain than others before it. Our urge to create an explanatory framework may be more acute than at other times. But the need itself is familiar.

One of the ways we make sense is through stories. Rhetorical scholar Walter Fisher argued that rather than homo economicus, carefully weighing pros and cons to make abstract rational decisions, people are homo narrans, relying on familiar narratives to explain our world. We identify good guys and bad guys, we assign motives, determine causes and consequences, and predict what is likely to happen next. If you strip out the details of some of the world’s most iconic stories, you’ll find many of the same core elements: a victor, a victim, and a vanquished – a heroic figure who rescues terrified villagers besieged by a dragon. Joseph Campbell, in his 1949 work “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” describes the familiar narrative this way: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

The stories we tell need not be fully accurate, but just accurate enough; facts don’t do much to inform the core of our stories. The facts matter of course, but only as much as we’re able to knit them together to help us make sense. Stories omit some facts, and others get tweaked or dialed up or down to keep the story compelling and coherent. A story can’t be entirely fictional, but it need not be entirely factual either. The story just has to be “true enough” for its listeners to recognize the kinds of tropes and motifs they expect and need to hear.

A challenge of COVID-19 and the global pandemic is that the story is an unfamiliar one. The origin of the virus is unclear, the spread is uncontrolled, the cure is unknown, the consequences keep getting worse, and the (unknown) end is nowhere in sight. That’s why our need for a compelling and comforting story is even greater. We want a story to help us make sense of the pandemic. We want a beginning, a middle, and most of all a happy ending. Just as any port will do in a storm, any story will do in a pandemic, so long as it has those familiar elements that help us make sense of things.

Enter Plandemic

In May, weeks after many Americans began social distancing and quarantining, for how long no one knew (or knows), a 26-minute video began to spread rapidly across social media platforms. In it, a filmmaker named Mikki Willis and a widely discredited scientist named Judy Mikovits weave an elaborate web of conspiracy theories, strung together with just enough of the truth (yes, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci has worked in public health in the 1980s; yes, Bill Gates funds efforts to improve public health; yes, pharmaceutical companies aim to make a profit) to provide a plausible, cohesive narrative of the pandemic: what it is, what you should do, who to blame for it, and importantly why it’s happening. The video attracted millions of viewers before it was removed from platforms like Facebook and YouTube for containing medically unsubstantiated information.

The video has been criticized by the public health community, thoroughly debunked by a wide variety of news outlets, and described by scientists as nonsense at best, dangerous at worst. And yet, many people fell for Plandemic. Why?

Purple Strategies’ interest in this topic is not new – our firm has been studying how misinformation spreads in an effort to help our clients navigate its often-damaging impact on corporate reputation. To understand the impact and influence on those who watched Plandemic, Purple Strategies conducted online dial testing of the full video in early June 2020 – several weeks after the video first appeared and shortly after it was removed from social media sites. In addition to dial testing, which allows the viewer to provide moment-by-moment feedback on live and recorded video content, participants in this study also answered survey questions about their beliefs and reactions to claims made in the video both before and immediately after watching Plandemic.

We found that the video was successful in shifting people’s beliefs (that is, their assessment of the “facts”), even among those who found the video on the whole less than credible and those ideologically predisposed to doubt the video’s claims. And while the rest of this analysis focuses on the ways and reasons why Plandemic worked, we should note that not everyone was convinced by the video – or perhaps more accurately, not everyone found the video credible. In our testing among members of the Informed Public, more than two-thirds of Democrats and Independents, and one third of Republicans, found the video to be not at all credible or had mixed opinions. And yet, many viewers – including some of those who did not find the video credible – ended up shifting their beliefs on some crucial questions about the origin of the virus, politicization of death counts, trust in Dr. Fauci, and comfort in getting the forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine.

 

Respondents across every demographic and psychographic subgroup shifted in their beliefs on these points, including education level, party ID, age, gender, and overall credibility of the video.

 

How Plandemic Did It

Which brings us back to, why was this video so effective? Telling a compelling story, it turns out, was key.

(1) The video cleverly contains all the trappings of a legitimate documentary. Archival news coverage and decades-old videos and photos of some of COVID-19’s key players, particularly of Dr. Anthony Fauci. A sympathetic interviewer, nodding along in solemn agreement as his subject decries all the forces that have been at work against her. Use of scientific terms and references to other pandemics (Ebola, SARS, HIV) that signal “this person knows what she’s talking about.” B-roll footage with voiceover were made to look like news reports.

Dial testing suggests that these elements work on different audiences in different ways. Among those already sympathetic to the central arguments presented in Plandemic (those whose pre-video survey responses reveal stronger agreement with claims made in the video), assessments of the video’s credibility steadily increase as each of these legitimizers play out on screen. Among those who do not start out (or for that matter, end up) as believers, and whose dials indicate that they are increasingly skeptical of what they are seeing and hearing, they nonetheless find just enough legitimate moments to prevent them from turning their dials down into “not credible at all” territory.

Dial testing suggests that these elements work on different audiences in different ways.

 

(2) As homo narrans, we humans use familiar narratives to help make sense of the world. Plandemic is chock-full of familiar narratives, and there’s a little something recognizable and believable in it for everyone. Examples of claims made in the video include:

• Scientific journals twist findings that don’t agree with the narrative of the scientific community
• Tech platforms are in on the conspiracy and working to silence “dissenting voices”
• Schools don’t receive critical funding unless they “speak the party line”
• Closing the beaches to stop the spread is “insanity” because of the “sequences in the soil” and “healing microbes in the ocean”
• Pharmaceutical companies are suppressing natural remedies and therapies for COVID-19 because they won’t profit from them; with COVID, “the game” is to push vaccines
• Makers of COVID-19 vaccines will kill millions “as they already have” (though Mikovits insists she’s “absolutely not” anti-vaccine)
• The outbreak of COVID-19 began not only in Wuhan but also in a lab at Ft. Detrich, in Frederick, Maryland, suggesting that the US military-industrial complex is partially responsible for the virus
• The government is inflating the death toll of COVID-19
• Fauci is at the center of a vast coverup conspiracy (though what he is covering up is not clearly defined)

These are effective precisely because they tap into deeply held, longstanding beliefs and reinforce familiar narratives; the sheer volume and ideological range of the claims increase the chance that everyone can find something in the video that aligns with something they already believe to be true. We know that people across demographic and psychographic groups are susceptible to misinformation, even and especially the smartest among us. Plandemic proved no exception. For those on the right, COVID-19 claims are overblown, tech platforms are suppressing the truth and China is largely responsible for the outbreak; for the left, big pharma is bad and “real” science is under attack. And for those, left or right, who are attracted to conspiracies in general, the idea that elites (in the media and science) are perpetrating a cover-up is salivating. These narratives provide just enough of a “hook” to shift people’s beliefs pre/post video on several of the video’s central claims.

(3) The video gives us the story we crave in its most traditional form. The hero — Judy Mikovits — aims to save her village — the world! — from a dragon — a “plague of corruption that places all life in danger.” Despite many trials and tribulations — Mikovits claims to have been arrested and terrorized by agents of the government and “minions of Big PhRMA,” and accuses Dr. Fauci of covering up a major scientific discovery she made — Mikovits’ “courage” to speak out helps the hero ultimately prevail. But perhaps more importantly for understanding how this and other misinformation like it succeed, the story we crave is a story, any story, that helps us make sense of that which seems to make none, providing a ready explanation of what this is, who has been wronged, who is responsible, and how we should proceed. Not everyone is convinced by this story, but that really isn’t the point. The real, accurate story is messy – doctors, nurses, and public health officials striving to figure out the virus, treat it, and cure it against a backdrop of conflicting messages about transmission and prevention. The true story lacks the clearly defined narratives and roles we crave – victor, victim, vanquished. Plandemic provides those comfortable tropes.

“I find it what we need to hear. We always need to question what we’re being told. The content of this doesn’t surprise me.”

“I have seen this video before and shared it on social media as I thought there was good information to share. I was told that the scientist was fake and her research is discredited and not valid. However if people do not want information shared they cover it up. We all need to research information that we read and hear and not take things for face value.”

“The lady sure appeared sincere, knowledgeable, and credible. There are some folks that need to be required to answer some really tough questions.”

“I am so glad I saw this video and I find it very credible, interesting and educational. It is scary how our government can hide things and control people and situations in cases like this.”

 (4) The video trusts us to make the right decision with the “truth” it has revealed to us. People don’t want to be told what to believe. They want to make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions. The creators of Plandemic lay out plenty of “facts” and the story they’re telling is clear, but they stop short of telling viewers exactly what to believe or how to act. This is especially important because we know how severely it can backfire when people are told what they should believe. The last question of our survey showed people a disclaimer informing them the video they had just watched was removed from social media sites for containing misleading information and asked how credible they found it knowing that. It turns out that the disclaimer didn’t shift people’s overall assessment of the video’s credibility, and open-end responses suggest that knowing that the video had been taken down actually caused some respondents to find it more credible. Though they were attempting to do the right thing, this move by social platforms actually increased resistance and skepticism, lent further credibility to the idea expressed in Plandemic that the actual truth was being hidden.

Q: In light of the information that social media platforms removed this video from their platforms because it included unsubstantiated medical advice, how credible do you find the information shared in the “Plandemic” video?

 

How to Fight Back

Immediately after Plandemic was posted online, multiple media outlets and critics (with arguably far more credibility and bona fides than the protagonist of Plandemic) mounted a spirited rebuttal, offering point-by-point takedowns of the factual inaccuracies in the video. Their intentions were good: correct the record and provide people with more accurate information so they can make better decisions and come to more informed conclusions. And while there has been some scholarly debate about how well that works, recent research has shown that fact-checking can work to sway people’s beliefs in the direction of new, more accurate information.

But countering a conspiracy theory requires more than facts and fact-checking – it also requires its own compelling narrative. Disputing a conspiracy theory fact-by-fact can help weaken its credibility, but without a supporting story that presents accurate information in a compelling narrative, it will usually lose. Good advocates provide accurate information with the contents – the narrative – to help make sense of complex and sometimes evolving facts.

What this suggests is that to counter misinformation, we need a more compelling counter-story. And in this respect, Plandemic offers valuable lessons for all of us:

•  Meet people where they are. Attempting to change people’s beliefs (assessment of the facts) and ultimately their attitudes (underlying position on a topic) requires first understanding their starting positions and beliefs. Too often, fact-checking makes the mistake of assuming that people are looking for truth, when more often they are looking for confirmation and validation; too often counter-arguments jump to the “right answer” without considering the barriers many will have in making such a leap. Moving people to another position often requires an incremental approach that recognizes where they are now in terms of their beliefs and plans the steps (including new information) it will take to bring people along.

•  Tell a story. Facts and rebuttals may be the basis for the story we want to tell, but they cannot themselves be the story. A list of facts is not a story. Critical facts must be woven together into a story that makes sense of the chaos and confusion. They must offer a better port.

•  Use narratives that give people something familiar to latch onto. Particularly in stressful and uncertain situations, we seek out the familiar to comfort us. Plandemic deftly employs familiar narratives that speak to different audiences at different starting points, giving just about everybody at least something they can nod along with.

•  Find the right storyteller. Perhaps the biggest challenge for those looking to combat misinformation is that they are so often missing a compelling and credible voice to tell their story. With the increasing politicization of science, hyper-partisanship in politics, and the active and increasing distrust of companies and institutions, this is not an easy task. And it is made even more difficult by those who spread mis- and dis-information, who typically look to discredit messengers of truth as a first step. Dr. Fauci might have been well-positioned to tell a comprehensive story about the pandemic and how we can eradicate it; the filmmakers’ direct and repeated attacks on him were certainly no accident. Scientists are often called on to rebut inaccuracies, but can make for less than compelling messengers by virtue of the self-restraint imposed by their ethical and moral responsibilities and obligations to the scientific method and the communication of scientific findings. They may make good messengers, if they can communicate authoritatively and responsibly in a way that is still compelling.

•  And finally, guide people toward the truth but let them come to their own conclusions. Attempts to force people to accept a particular belief or story as true often backfire. People trust themselves to sort through evidence and reach the right conclusions much more than they trust others. The decision about what to ultimately believe and accept must be theirs. Unfortunately, this kind of encouragement to “decide for yourself” often takes the form of telling people to question everything and to not accept anything as true until they’ve done their own research, which is what leads many down conspiracy theory rabbit holes to begin with. But by supplying people with the facts they need woven into narratives they’ll recognize and accept as legitimate, and guiding them toward trusted sources for affirmation, we’ll have done what we can to help people come to sound conclusions.

 

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Denise Brien | Managing Director | denise.brien@purplestrategies.com

Alec Jacobs | Senior Director | alec.jacobs@purplestrategies.com

Peter Loge | Associate Professor, School of Media and Public Affairs, The George Washington University | biography

Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the impacts of misinformation and disinformation, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to authors Denise Brien or Alec Jacobs or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

Despite its outlandish claims and obvious falsehoods, plenty of Americans were taken in by Plandemic: an explosive, conspiracy-laden, documentary-style video about COVID-19 that appeared on social media in May. We dial-tested the viral video to find out how it was so persuasive. Watch Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University, and Purple’s Denise Brien, Alec Jacobs and Meghan Moran to discuss our findings on why Plandemic was so compelling to so many, and how best to combat the kind of dangerous misinformation it represents.

Dive into our full findings and insights here.

If there’s one thing we do well in America, it’s argue. Especially about politics. Taxes, healthcare, the environment – on pretty much any topic, it’s a fair bet that about half of Americans will happily disagree with the other half. But sports has always been different.

Despite increasingly divergent opinions on the intersection of political activism and our national pastimes, the love of competition on the professional playing field, court, or rink has been something we come back to in times of challenge. Sports represent a fun and safe place to connect, and yes argue, with family and friends. Or at least it used to be.

As COVID-19 infections continue to surge across the country, the pandemic is creating new political and social flash points around what it means to play ball.

For the NBA, a league that has invested heavily in bringing players to Florida for the July 30 season restart, the challenge of playing indoors in the midst of the crisis is particularly pointed. In March, the NBA’s move to postpone the 2020 season after a single player tested positive was a bellwether of things to come. Their early, decisive action was brave and sent a message about the value of player and fan safety.

But now, in the midst of rising infection rates, beliefs among fans as to how the league should move forward are fractured. One in four sports fans are already against the NBA’s decision to restart the season and only 16% of fans think the league should move forward if players start to test positive inside the NBA’s “bubble.”

Half of fans say the league should cancel the final set of games if players start to test positive, full stop.

 

 

What’s underlying this concern seems to be two widely held beliefs: first, 73% of fans say that looking back, the NBA’s decision (and those of other leagues) to pause play was the right move; and second, 65% say players, despite being paid between merely huge and hugely massive sums of money, shouldn’t have to play if they have concerns about the virus. Only 29% of sports fans say players should have to lace up.

The reality is that the NBA is riding high on its positive reputation right now, despite the much maligned “bubble meals.” Fans are bullish on the league’s future (45% say its best days are still ahead!) and its reputation for deftly navigating social issues is the envy of every other league, including the NCAA. In April, The Boston Globe noted “The NBA is the only [league] trusted to do the right thing, whatever that happens to be, largely because Adam Silver is the most competent and compassionate commissioner in sports. It’s not close, really. He’ll be worthy of our trust when sports return and normalcy begins to be restored.”

And yet here we are in mid-July, staring down many of the same challenges we faced in April. The virus is surging and hospitals in some parts of the country are at a breaking point. In many ways, we’ve willed an opening that we weren’t ready for, and the NBA is doing everything it can to toe the line with its own. Every industry and business is facing this challenge of the public wanting something we might not be ready for, but probably nowhere is it more easily visible than with sports. Non-sports fans are nearly 60% more likely to think restarting the NBA right now is a mistake.

 

 

Adam Silver should tread carefully to protect his and the league’s reputation equity in the coming weeks. In March, he pulled the ripcord and quite literally saved lives while strengthening the NBA’s reputation. Being brave enough to ignore the sunk costs of the restart if players start testing positive will cement beliefs about the league’s values, deepen trust in its leaders, and accelerate the NBA’s aspirations to become the leading American sport of the future.

 

Purple Pulse Survey of the US Informed Public. N=800. July 1-2, 2020.

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Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for the future that will come after, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to author Nate Byer or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

In mid-June, AMC CEO Adam Aron announced his movie theater chain would not require patrons to wear masks when they reopen in July in an effort to avoid “political controversy.” Still, controversy ensued. After significant pushback and criticism from a range of stakeholders, AMC reversed course only a day after the initial announcement.

This episode speaks to the broader challenge facing decision-makers tasked with reopening and running companies in the “new normal” because of COVID-19. Not only must leaders balance safety and financial impact, but they also must recognize that – as views of this pandemic become increasingly politicized – their positions and statements on the topic will be viewed through a political lens. And while the majority of corporate positions won’t become headline-making controversies, it is increasingly critical to understand the ways in which partisanship influences beliefs about companies.

As part of our ongoing research into the impact of COVID-19 on corporate reputation, Purple Strategies surveyed Americans about their opinions on reopening the economy and their beliefs about the opposing views of two outspoken business leaders on the issue: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

What we see from the results is that, while messages are evaluated through a political filter, the reputational impact on brands is not so clear cut.

On the face of it, perceptions of Musk and Cuban are nearly identical:

•  29% think each has an excellent reputation, while about 10% rate their reputation as poor;

•  About a quarter of the Informed Public think each has been doing an excellent job leading their organizations through the pandemic, and;

•  About a third believe each cares a lot about their employees.

And, these views hold pretty true across party lines, with Musk holding a bit more favor among Republicans and Cuban a slight advantage among Democrats.

But, when we introduce each leader’s position – and importantly, the rhetoric they used to express those positions – we see Americans retreat to their partisan corners.

• Mark Cuban: “Whatever the White House is doing for the president and vice president, that’s the protocol I want to use for my employees. And if I can’t adhere to that, then why would I put them at risk?”
• Elon Musk: “Reopen with care and appropriate protection, but don’t put everyone under de facto house arrest.”

Among all respondents, views are nearly evenly split, with around half endorsing Cuban’s position and half supporting Musk’s. But when we take a closer look, we see the political divide is clear. Only 1/3 of Democrats agree with Musk, while 2/3 agree with Cuban (31% and 69% respectively) – and the inverse is true among Republicans (67% for Musk and 33% for Cuban). This trend continues in responses to related questions, with Democrats preferring companies be more cautious in their approach while Republicans expect that companies do what they can to provide for the safety of workers and customers, without expecting that they go beyond government guidance.

One would expect these partisan preferences to also be reflected in a change in views of the brand each executive leads – or at least, that’s what we expected based on years of analyzing pre-/post- message testing results.

But this isn’t what happened.

Despite messaging alignment (Dems for Cuban and GOP for Musk), the Mavericks get a reputational bump in post-message testing while Tesla loses steam – and this is true across party lines.

Not too surprisingly, the Mavericks see a reputational increase among Democrats of nearly 10%. More surprisingly, though, we see nearly the same percentage of Republicans shifting their views in favor of the team, from rating the Mavs’ reputation as poor or unknown to neutral or positive. Not only do we see the Mavericks increase their reputation across parties, we also see Tesla lose reputational equity across parties. After exposure to Musk’s reopening message, Republicans cool their views of Tesla from thinking it has an excellent reputation to holding a more neutral opinion (-6%). This is true to a greater extent among Democrats (-14%).

It’s hard to say for sure why Republicans’ pro-Musk/anti-Cuban views didn’t translate to increasingly positive views for Tesla or negative views of the Mavs. What we do know is, whether you’re red, blue or purple, everyone agrees that people should feel safe doing their jobs. And, maybe when it comes down to it, as much as Republicans agree with Musk’s “let’s get back to work” mentality, they recognize that such a position impacts real people, which means that position needs to be balanced with sufficient assurances to protect employee health and safety.

As phased approaches to opening non-essential businesses continue to roll out across the country, the reality for many Americans is not when they will go back to work, but what work will look like when they do. Americans want to know that employers are taking steps to protect workers. Regardless of public rhetoric, leaders prove real impact with the actions they take. Americans across the political spectrum will feel more comfortable and confident in our collective back-to-work plan when they see that employers are doing everything in their power to appropriately balance financial decisions with public health and safety.

 

Purple Pulse Survey of the US Informed Public. N=834. June 10-13, 2020.

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By Erica Goldman | Director | erica.goldman@purplestrategies.com

Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for the future that will come after, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to author Erica Goldman or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

Coming off 15 years successfully working at the intersection of policy, politics and messaging in both the House of Representatives and high-profile congressional campaigns, Jordan Davis joins Purple Strategies as a senior director this week.

“As we navigate this moment with our clients, we’re seeing heightened demand for the political campaign and policy expertise that have been part of Purple DNA from the beginning and that Jordan brings in spades,” said Steve McMahon, Purple co-founder and CEO. “We’re excited we’ll have him alongside us helping clients confront the changes they’re facing every day.”

Most recently, Jordan has been serving as senior advisor at the House Energy & Commerce Committee during the 115th and 116th Congresses, where he advised Committee leadership and members on messaging and legislative strategy. In this role, he oversaw all internal and external communications, coalitions engagement, and external affairs efforts of the Committee.

Previously Jordan served as policy director and communications advisor at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, where he established the NRCC’s policy department and provided strategic communications advice and issue education to House campaigns nationwide. He also served as legislative research director at the NRCC during the historic 2010 election cycle, and prior to that, in multiples roles within the House of Representatives in some of the most competitive political environments in the nation. Jordan is a graduate of the University of Central Florida.

“Purple Strategies is known for its innovation, thoughtfulness, and an unwavering dedication to their clients, and they do it all with a reputation that is second to none. I am thrilled at the opportunity to join an already stellar team and am hopeful that my mix of political, policy, and messaging experience will bring value both to Purple and its clients,” Jordan said.

Jordan is the latest in a series of senior-level talent across disciplines that Purple has brought on board this year as the firm embarks on its second decade helping corporations prepare for, navigate and compel change. Other key hires for Purple in 2020 have included Rebecca Ballard, managing director for communications, marketing and engagement; Chris Dealy, executive creative director; and Stacey Jaffe, senior director and insights lead.

As businesses start to reopen in nearly every state, leaders face difficult decisions around how to create an environment in which employees and customers are not only physically safe but also feel comfortable enough to return.

A challenge with this is that many of the most effective actions businesses can take to protect employees and customers aren’t easily visible, and therefore may not on their own translate to helping people feel more comfortable. Customers generally don’t see a plane or hotel room being cleaned, nor are they watching their food get prepared in a restauraunt. That’s why detailing and communicating all COVID-19 health processes – including those that may not be visible – is critical for any business welcoming back employees or customers.

And while media attention naturally gravitates toward the sci-fi-esque technology claiming to blast away COVID-19, our research shows that some of the simplest actions, such as offering free masks and hand sanitizer, have the biggest impact on perceived safety.

 

Q: Some businesses are investing in health and safety measures to keep their employees and customers safe when they reopen. Please rate each of the following precautions on how they would make you feel when entering a business with other people.

 

But what makes people feel safe does not always translate to what will ensure their physical safety.

That’s okay, as long as those actions are part of a broader plan that does protect physical health. Consider temperature checks. Many businesses are investing in technology solutions to enable contactless temperature checking and companies are rising to meet the new demand. One such company is IntraEdge, which just launched a self-check temperature kiosk in late May.

Purple’s Pulse Survey survey finds required temperature screenings would make 58% of people more comfortable or feel totally safe going to a business. But how would checking the temperature of everyone who enters a business stack up on actual safety?

March WHO data show 80% of COVID-19 cases are mild or asymptomatic. While the technology is able to identify those exhibiting fever symptoms, it is ineffective against the larger share of asymptomatic cases.

Dan Clarke, president of IntraEdge products and solutions, recognizes this fact, and describes its kiosk as just “one piece of the puzzle” for states’ reopening. While the puzzle piece of identifying and stopping those symptomatic cases from spreading is indeed an important one, businesses that fail to recognize and enforce the others needed to protect people’s health can do more harm than good. If people aren’t properly educated about the constellation of actions needed to protect their safety, it can feed a false sense of security that emboldens them to neglect vital complementary precautions.

While both physical safety and perceived safety are important for businesses, “safety theater” is what happens when they get the balance wrong.

What is ‘safety theater’?

Safety theater is when a company takes performative steps to provide the feeling of improved safety, but without doing enough to ensure it physically.

Some bad actors may intentionally lure customers and employees back to an unsafe environment; however, it’s far more likely that well intentioned companies and brands will inadvertently take the safety theater’s stage.

Intentions aside, participating in safety theater can have serious consequences. Above all else, it jeopardizes the health and safety of employees and customers. Doing so can also have material reputation ramifications, however, including undermining a company’s credibility, diminishing trust, and contributing to the perception that they are putting profits over people.

As companies’ response to COVID-19 continues under the microscope, missteps won’t just affect those interacting with the company directly. Stakeholders are ready to hold companies accountable for perceived missteps, and social and traditional media can easily amplify the voice of even a few critical onlookers.

Selling ‘safety theater’

After 9/11, an entire industry was built seemingly overnight to protect physical spaces from a safety and security threat. Similarly, in the face of COVID-19, countless companies have begun marketing their solutions to keep people safe and allow businesses to reopen.

Another technology gaining interest is UV light walkthroughs, which purport to kill germs on those who pass through them and would make most people (58%) more comfortable entering a business. While businesses may be well intentioned in investing in this technology, it falls short of stopping the spread of potentially dangerous germs once people have entered a controlled space. If reliance on this technology causes employees and customers to overlook other important protocols, the effects of the measure can actually be counterproductive.

How can leaders avoid the safety theater trap?

First and foremost, follow advice of health experts. Health experts and organizations are not only the most qualified to provide proper guidance, but stakeholders also view them as the most credible. Following their lead on protocols that have been proven most effective – and adapting your policies to new information – may turn off a small group of vocal customers in the short term, but will protect your long-term business and reputation.

Implement COVID-19 health guidelines, and communicate regularly and transparently. Making changes to your business like providing health shields for customers and sharing detailed and clear health guidelines can go a long way to make people feel safe and prevent further spread of the disease. In doing so, recognize that no single measure will offer complete protection, and always communicate where there may be deficiencies.

Don’t ignore onlookers. What’s theater without an audience? Remember your actions have visibility beyond those with whom you’re engaging directly. Proactively communicate through channels that inform in-person audiences as well as those watching the show remote.

 

Purple Pulse Survey of the US Informed Public. N=834. June 10-13, 2020.

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By Diana Muggeridge | diana.muggeridge@purplestrategies.com

Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for the future that will come after, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to author Diana Muggeridge or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

What it means

COVID-19 and the challenges it poses to governments, companies and individuals around the world are often described as “unprecedented.” But one much-covered angle of the larger COVID-19 story is not only not unprecedented, it was utterly predictable. And that’s the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation we’ve seen swirling over the last several months.

I say “utterly predictable” because we see this phenomenon routinely with major news events, and particularly in times of disaster or crisis when people are starved for the latest information. Misinformation is created (whether it’s done with good intentions or bad isn’t so important), spreads rapidly and then has its impact, whether it’s people refusing vaccinations or other medical treatment or believing, despite the obvious implausibility, that the coronavirus-imposed quarantine has allowed dolphins to “return” to the canals of Venice.

Companies and organizations often fall prey to misinformation. We’re seeing it now. The Gates Foundation was accused in January of “patenting” the coronavirus by a Twitter personality with 150,000 followers. 5G cell phone technology also became a magnet for misinformation. What started as a post on an anonymously run blog morphed into an incoherent global narrative about how 5G was somehow connected to coronavirus deaths. And it ultimately led militant conspiracy theorists to set fire to Vodafone cell towers in the UK.

These are extreme situations for sure. But most companies have to fight misinformation every day, whether defending themselves from claims that they’re harming consumers with a dangerous product ingredient or having their motives questioned when critics surface out-of-context documents and distort their message and meaning.

And though it rarely if ever solves the problem, the corporate playbook with regard to combatting misinformation is usually the same: Get the facts out. Make our voice heard. If only people knew the truth, they’d see things our way and the misinformation would stop.

The reason this approach seldom works is rooted in psychology.

Belief formation is not as conscious a process as we like to think it is. Many decisions we make about what to believe or not are made instantaneously, driven by instinct, intuition and past experience. So many people on the receiving end of misinformation have already formed their beliefs by the time companies reach them with the facts, and they don’t think they need to be corrected. They’re not in search of the truth, seeking out different sides of the story and coming to thoughtful conclusions. They’ve found the truth. And though that “truth” may be inaccurate or misguided or even irrational, it doesn’t matter. Largely because of confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias leads us to believe in ideas, concepts, information we receive that we want to be true. And this is true of even the smartest and most scientifically literate among us. We’re motivated more by our subconscious wishful thinking than we are by facts or data. And that means that once we’ve formed a belief, it’s pretty likely we’ll stop looking for new evidence, particularly evidence that would refute what we now know to be true. People believe that 5G is linked to the coronavirus because it aligns with what they want to be true (believing in a salacious conspiracy theory can be fun, so long as you aren’t burning down cell towers) and what they know to be true (companies can’t be trusted and advanced technology like 5G must have come with downsides). Try as a company might, a whitepaper alone can’t refute such deeply held beliefs.

So what does this mean? How should we respond? Axios recently published a thoughtful piece that offers some ideas, though many of them depend on companies being proactive and “pre-bunking” rather than debunking myths and misinformation. Useful advice, if a company has the foresight to recognize the real harm misinformation can do. Most of the time though, companies are too late and find themselves on the defense, trying to swat down individual news stories and tweets and losing the forest through the trees.

The truth is, there are no easy answers to this problem, one that will only grow worse in our inter-connected world where misinformation increasingly gets the same shot as information at informing and reinforcing our beliefs. We have had some hard-fought successes tackling this challenge for individual clients, but it became apparent that we needed an enterprise-level commitment. That is why before COVID, we invested in a cross-disciplinary team tasked with writing the new playbook on fighting back.

At our core, Purple is about blending different perspectives and thinking to plot the best path forward. So in addition to leveraging the skills of a range of Purple expertise leaders, we’ll continue to collaborate with experts across academia, industry, public policy and tech. And we’re investing in new research to continue to test ways to better combat misinformation. Over the coming months, we look forward to sharing our learnings with you.

 

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By Alec Jacobs | Senior Director | alec.jacobs@purplestrategies.com

Purple is actively partnering with companies and industries to navigate the impacts of misinformation and disinformation, bringing deep experience helping the world’s best-known companies navigate the world’s toughest challenges. Please reach out to author Alec Jacobs or any member of our Purple team to let us know how we can support you.

 

What it means