Marketing in a Digital Age and Corporate Social Responsibility

Challenges the UK government faced in their campaign to change peoples’ behaviours during the Covid-19 pandemic

COVID 19 pandemic created a challenging situation where the public band the government bodies must promote the activities to prevent the spreading of virus across the social communities through improving operating system, changes in the behaviour and creating communication strategy by utilising the digital and social media platforms (Al-Dmour et al., 2020). It is important for the government of the country to promote and raise awareness about vaccination for COVID 19, where the people are suffering from getting infected of the dangerous life threatened virus. In the recent pandemic situation, all the people must be concerned about the situation of COVID 19 and getting vaccinated immediately to prevent the spread of the virus together (Hall et al., 2021). The UK government is cooperating with NGOs, NHS and public health England to provide important information related to the vaccination and the effects of COVID 19 virus, so that the individual across the UK are getting vaccinated as soon as possible and stop the chances of spreading virus across the countries. However, the UK government has faced several challenges to promote campaign related to the COVID 19 information and latest vaccination activities across the society.

The major challenge is social isolation, due to social distance and lock down (Li, Hallsworth and Coca‐Stefaniak, 2020). The individuals across the houses are restricted to go out and they feel isolated. There are no social gatherings and relationship building activities across the society which raises the scope of mental health issues. The individuals feel depressed and alone at home, and there is lack of communication and cooperation with others in the society. This challenging situation raises the issue for the UK Government to arrange campaign and communicate with the social communities for promoting vaccination activities across the societies in the UK (Rosen et al., 2021). The campaign must be arranged to enhance the people’s behaviour during the COVID 19 pandemic so that the individual can get appropriate information related to the treatment, symptoms and activities related to COVID 19 situation. The campaign is also helpful to raise awareness about the vaccine so that the people can trust the vaccine of COVID 19 and get their vaccination dosage immediately.

Lack of communication is another major challenge that the UK government face during the campaigning process in the society of the UK, where there is lack of communication and cooperation of the people living in the societies (Atchison et al., 2020). The government cannot reach the social communities for sharing information and data related to the pandemic situation. The UK government also fails to educate the people in the country through the social campaign. Hence, it becomes a serious issue to educate the individuals and engage them with the vaccination campaign, so that they can trust the vaccination process and promote the activities across different social communities. Financing and ethical competency are other challenges for the UK where they face the issue of lack of capital investment to produce vaccine and provide the vaccination across the social communities of the UK, unfair vaccine allocation across the societies, shortage of vaccination dosage, lack of safety and security are also other challenges for which the UK government cannot work efficiently to raise trust on vaccination across the UK (Lallie et al., 2021). Apart from social distancing and lack of involvement of the individuals in the UK social campaign, there are other serious challenges such as poor communication, lack of market interaction between the health care providers and the service users across the UK, poor financing policy and lack of ethical compliance to maintain the quantity of vaccination dosage in the country in order to ensure fair distribution among the individuals of different social communities of the UK (Perrotta et al., 2021). There are also technical challenges such as unethical practices, sharing fake data and information, misleading the information and data hacking, which may raise issues for the government and other public private partnership firm to tackle the individual and develop trust on vaccine.

Effectiveness of the British government’s digital, cause-related marketing, communications strategy regarding Covid-19 and the vaccine

The UK government is efficient to arrange capital for financing so that it would be possible to promote vaccination across the social communities as well as provide adequate vaccination dosage to the individuals as per the requirement. There are still high numbers of individuals, who do not trust on the vaccination practices and they are not willing to get vaccinated. The Campaigners working in or with communities for promoting the campaign related to the COVID 19 situation and raise awareness about vaccine, where the 54% of campaigners believe the pandemic has increased the priority of campaigning for their organisation (Levinger and Hill, 2020). It is hereby importance for the UK government to increase the campaigning process and arrange more capital for promoting vaccination. On the other hand, 98% people think that there is requirement for more campaigning by the civil society in the next 12 months, so that it would be possible to involve the social communities across the UK and get their vaccination done as soon as possible (Bond, 2021). Trades Union Congress: Winning furlough is one of the major campaigns in the UK, held on 20 March, 2020 where the chancellor announced that the government would set up the corona virus job retention campaign with 80% of the salary of furloughed workers, in the critical situation of job loss and unemployment (OECD, 2021). Trades Union Congress (TUC) believed a job subsidy scheme to raise awareness among the individuals and influence them to get their vaccination within short period of time so that it would be possible to contribute in the society by stop the spread of virus across the social communities. The union was successful to promote the vaccination campaign through supporting the employees by providing job in such a critical situation. They formed an alliance with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and were successful to protect 11 million jobs, orienting the widespread unemployment (Gov.UK., 2021).

In addition to this, People’s Vaccine Alliance: People’s Vaccine is another social campaigning, arranged by the campaigners with the collaboration of the UK government with effective access of vaccination and other necessary medicines (Bond, 2021). The campaign targets the governmental and pharmaceuticals companies by applying high-profile letters, public campaigns and public days of action in order to make availability of the vaccine and educate the individuals regarding vaccination. the campaign is effective to make vaccination alliances with Amnesty International, Free the Vaccine, Frontline AIDS, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, Public Citizen, SumOfUs, Tear fund, UNAIDS and the Yunus Centre with the purpose of sharing the data information and technologies related to COVID 19 for raising awareness across social communities of the UK (Srikanth, 2020). On the other hand, the UK government and campaigners arranged Anti-Tribalism Movement: Building awareness of the impact of Covid-19 on people of colour (with a focus on British Somalis) to help diverse people living on the UK and raise awareness among them about the vaccination process. For building trust among them, the campaigners tried hard to inform the different ethnicity group of the UK by sharing the impacts of COVID 19 situation including health problems, women violence, and unemployment and remittance payments to Somalia. The campaigners also work with Comic Relief and the National Emergency Fund to provide micro-grants of £432,000 to POC-led community organisations. This is helpful to guide them and arrange funding for supporting them to improve their standard of living. Hence, the campaigns are effective in the UK to promote vaccination and involve the people across diverse social communities so that the people can trust the vaccination dosage and get their vaccination done immediately to live safely and stop spreading the virus (Gov.UK., 2021).

On the other hand, the United States is also efficient to arrange on going mass immunization campaign for the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The FDA granted emergency use of authorization to the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine on December 10, 2020 and mass vaccinated has been started from December 14, 2020. The U.S. government first initiated the campaign under the presidency of Donald Trump with Operation Warp Speed, with public private partnership with the aim of producing high numbers of quality vaccine for protecting the individuals living across the countries. The USA government provide has paid Johnson and Johnson about $1 billion to produce hundred millions of vaccine and the vaccination are provided at free of cost at the vaccination campaign (Holland & Knight, 2020). As per the guidelines, the vaccination is safe and secure for the individuals and the government with private and public partnership aim at promoting the vaccination campaign for raising awareness among the people. March 2021, the United States surpassed 100 million doses administered, however, in June 2021, vaccination activities had begun to decrease across the countries and there was spread of the virus among the individuals. On 3rd June, the white house has announced another private public partnership in order to expand targeted outreach and vaccine availability, by the initiate of offering vaccination among BAME communities (Greenwood, 2021). There was also another partnership with the brewery company Anheuser Busch, who lodged in a promotional campaign by offering a free beer to all the adults over 21 years if the country met Biden's 70% goal. Hence, there are several vaccination campaigns for promoting and offering free vaccine to the individuals, in order to stop spreading of the virus across different social communities (VOA News, 2021).

On the other hand, the government arranged press release activities for sharing the information that the vaccine are saving lives and reducing mortality. They also utilised campaigning fund in order to invest in radio advertisement for sharing data and information related to COVID 19 situation and promotes the vaccination practices for securing the living being. Hereby, in the USA, the vaccination campaigns are fruitful to raise awareness and protect the livelihood of the individuals (Greenwood, 2021). The social campaigning in the UK are also beneficial for sharing adequate resources and data with the social communities so that they can understand the vaccination practice and get themselves involved with the activities to help each other for getting vaccinated. It also helps to raise collective voice and push for change among the social communities (Forman et al., 2021). The campaigners across the international countries try to raise their voice and share all the necessary information to create an integrated society where the individuals can participate and be knowledgeable about the pandemic situation and availability and practice of vaccines (Young et al., 2021). Hereby, campaigns are also beneficial to influence the changed behaviour of the individuals and also influence the people to get their vaccine immediately to stop spreading the vaccines and also help them to access important and right information about the vaccination practices. US renovate their campaigning style through television and radio advertisement for effective vaccination. UK must invest on digital media campaign, as in the recent pandemic situation, the people are becoming more technologically savvy for gathering authentic information and data (Bonell et al., 2020). The application of the CSR communication becomes one of the key parts of the strategic corporate marketing communication that allows the organisations to meet their strategic goals and utilise digital platform to promote the campaign successfully.

Recommendations for digital marketing communications strategy to promote a potential third booster dose of the vaccine in the UK

Digital marketing is the promotion of the brands or particular services to connect the potential customers by using the intent and other forms of digital communication and for promoting the third booster dose of the vaccine in the UK. It is mandatory for the UK government and other health and social care organisations to utilise digital marketing strategic planning. the government must promote the important information about the third booster dosage and other data such as prices of the dosage, impacts and implications of getting the their dosage of the vaccine and the age group who require the immediate third booster dosage through the government website of the UK. The role can access the information in the UK government official website and get proper information about the third booster dosage of the vaccine. Secondly, it is essential for the government and also the NHS and Public Health England to send personal email to the individual, who has also ready vaccinated with the two dosages. Personalise email is mandatory for the people to get adequate information about the third booster dosage where they can understand the process and vaccine campaign. The market communication can be improved through this digital media marketing practices, where the government of the UK may raise awareness among the individuals by sharing adequate information related to the third booster vaccine. The digital data base management system of the government of the UK is effective to protect the participant data and share relevant information related to third dosage of vaccine to the individuals who have completed first two dosage of vaccine.

In addition to this, for promoting the third booster dosage, the UK government must arrange social media campaign, to raise awareness among the youths and influence their behaviour towards vaccination. They can further influence their parents and family members for getting vaccinated immediately. It is hereby necessary for the UK government and NHS to arrange social media campaign on Facebook, as Facebook is considered to be effective social media platform encouraging two way communication. It is beneficial to arrange digital content to attract the audiences across the UK and engage the social communities as a whole. Building a Community on Facebook, managing the participant’s comments and providing proper answer to the queries of the individuals is important or the NHS and government of the UK to engage with the social communities and influence them to get their vaccination done as soon as possible. In addition to this, creating videos for Facebook promotion and providing adequate information about vaccination campaign for getting vaccinated at free of cost are also beneficial to enhance market communication and help the individuals to get vaccination. Content Marketing is another practice to raise awareness by developing blogging and article writing activities. The UK government must publish article on the vaccine dosage for the individuals in the society. With the help of social media, the articles must be published through television, online journal and government website; so that the individual can access the information and their behaviour and trust towards vaccination would be improved. Hence, through the suggested digital media strategic planning, the UK government can arrange online campaign and utilise social media for enhancing market communication, raising awareness among the people, influencing their behaviour and improving their trust on vaccination, so that the percentage of the individual for the third vaccine dosage would be maximised as soon as possible.

Corporation’s CSR policy, practice and communications after Covid-19

The COVID 19 situation has crucial impacts on the organisational operations, communication strategy and corporate social responsibility practices in order to run the operations efficiently to defeat the pandemic situation together with cooperation and communication. Johnson & Johnson is an American multinational corporation, founded in 1986 providing the best medical devices, pharmaceuticals and consumer health care products in order to maintain health and safety of the individuals across the globe (Johnson & Johnson, 2021a). It is a USA based company and become successful to operate across international countries. Total numbers of employees of the organisation is approximately 134,500 and Johnson & Johnson has generated revenue about US $82.584 billion in the last year. There are great contributions of the organisation during the COVID 19 situation, where it works with public private partnership practice by engaging USA government and also work with other organisations across the globe, in order to defeat the pandemic situation (Johnson & Johnson, 2021b). The practices adopted by Johnson & Johnson after such COVID 19 pandemic will be evaluated further.

Tackling the pandemic situation

For tackling the pandemic situation, the organisation focuses on innovative machineries and technical advancement for patient care and management as well as producing vaccine to supply it through private public partnership. The credo stakeholders of Johnson & Johnson are patients, consumers, healthcare providers and all the other services providers such as employees, distributions, suppliers, inventors, partners and social communities as a whole. Preventing viral vaccine capabilities and vaccination monitoring platform are suitable innovation of Johnson & Johnson in order to expand their services and protect the livelihood of the individuals across the globe. Johnson & Johnson also focuses on developing tuberculosis treatment in order to maintain safety and security (Johnson & Johnson, 2021b). Vaccinations are crucial to tackle the COVID 19 pandemic situation and the organisation is successful to bring a vaccine to the public on a not for profit basis form the emergency period. The vaccination development technology, global manufacturing capabilities and the scientific expertise are the main contributing factors in reducing the vaccine dosage and tackle the vaccination campaign successfully. The availability of an Emergency Use Authorized single-dose COVID 19 vaccine could potentially protect hundreds of millions of people and ensure to stop spreading virus across the social communities. USA FDA authorises single dose Janssen COVID 19 vaccine for the emergency usage, submitted the reported to the World Health Organisation (Johnson & Johnson, 2021c).

People management

People management is one of the strategic planning of Johnson & Johnson, where the brand focuses on managing their stakeholders and COVID situation further changed the policies and practice of people management. There are women in the management team and handling ethnic and racial diversity in the organisation is helpful to provide equal scope to the people for working together. Presence of BAME community and continuous encouragement are also helpful to manage the people in the organisation. Supporting front line health care workers and the communities are another strategic planning to maintain CSR practice and promote health and safety of all the people working in such critical pandemic phase. Johnson & Johnson Foundation committed $50 million dollars to support frontline health workers in order to manage extra training and developmental programs, handling the mental health and safety of the front line workers, protect equipment and providing meals to them. This commitment expands upon a $250 million multi-year commitment to guide and protect the health workers (Johnson & Johnson, 2021d).

The organisation advances the wellbeing and resilience of the frontline health workers, match the employee and retire donations to support them, creating campaign and managing resources with cooperation with mental health America to provide support for burnout, COVID 19 related stress and mental health of the frontline staff members. For successful employee management at the organisation, the leader focuses on safety, health and wellbeing of the employees. As a leader in global health, Johnson & Johnson has committed towards each staff by maximising their standard of living. The organisation is successful to maintain health and safety at the workplace, promote harmony to work and flexibility so that it would be possible to motivate the staff and maximise their productivity in long run. For work life balance, the company ensures to prioritise the emotional, mental and physical health and wellbeing of the employees and also maximise personal and professional development through training and learning sessions (Johnson & Johnson, 2021e).

Planet

The company Johnson & Johnson is also looking for sustainability through protecting natural resources and providing green environmental footprint. After such pandemic situation, Johnson & Johnson aims at providing clean environment to the people for maximising their wellbeing. The renewable electricity is being utilised for production and operations. Apart from that, the carbon neutrality for the operations is being implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emission. The organisation also contributes in the society for managing the wellbeing of the individuals. The vaccination at free of cost, public private partnership to tackle the institution and protect the individual, as well as vaccination monitoring platform and providing treatment to the individuals are the major activities to protect the individuals across the globe. Through these activities, Johnson & Johnson focuses on providing green environmental footprint as well as managing social responsibility by creating values for all the stakeholders of the company (Johnson & Johnson, 2021c).

Communication strategy

The communication strategy is also being changed during the pandemic situation, where Johnson & Johnson continuously inform the people with latest news and data related to COVID 19. The information about vaccination campaigning and availability of the vaccine cross the globe are also hared through social media campaign and organisational website. The company focuses on enhancing market communication by engaging with diverse social communities including ethnic and culturally diverse people, so that it would be possible to protect their livelihood successfully. The internal communication processes are conducted through information and Communication Technology for running their operations by handling the employees, partners and suppliers so that the whole operations can be handled efficiently. Additionally, the organisation mainly aims at arrange training and developmental programs to support the employees and front line health care workers, which is also one of the important practice to enhance communication and share the important information to protect the individuals and tackle the COVID 19 situation collaboratively (Johnson & Johnson, 2021f).

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