How can marketers mitigate the unwillingness to take covid-19 vaccine of few segments (mitigation marketing)

Abstract

In India, the Covid-19 second wave struck in early March 2021. The number of active cases peaked at about 3.7Mn by mid-March, thrice than observed in the first wave. The deaths peaked in April, resulting in 465k deaths to date 1. While India was struggling with the second wave by imposing lockdowns, the USA completed the vaccine dosages for 30% of the population and opened up facilities to normalcy2. At the same time, India was beginning its vaccination drive while the second wave hit it. At that instant, the people were reluctant to take vaccinations due to various factors. Neglecting the resource unavailability, too, a large population was unaware of the vaccine effects and need. Even as of November 2021, about 45% of the country's population is yet to get its first vaccine dose3. This instills a thought of what can be the reasons why the vaccination drives have not been efficient. Although comparing India with countries like the USA is not reliable given the stark population difference, the fact that chunks of the population are yet not willing to get their vaccine dose needs some exploration to figure out their rationale. Now is the most crucial time to figure out these reasons and mitigation strategies when the covid waves have subsided. We have a window to prepare and avoid any more pandemic effects. As a part of the study, we studied the factors affecting this Unwillingness of taking the vaccination by two Hypothesis- |) If Unwillingness of taking the Vaccine was related to the Unavailability of vaccines easily and 2) If the Unwillingness of taking the Vaccine was related to the Perception of Vaccine in people's mind. Our research across different demographic of respondents found that people's Perception played a significant role in the gap in vaccination drives. The significant reasons that came out from our study were the fear of the side effects of Vaccines and doubt on the Vaccine's effectiveness. These independent variables contributed significantly to our respondents' decision not to take at least one dose of the Vaccine.