AZ and the ‘availability bias’: Advertising gurus fight fear with 26 deadly facts

Originally shared on 2GB, 9.8.21

A coalition of marketing professionals have launched a clever and comedic campaign encouraging vaccine uptake by comparing statistics.

There’s a higher chance of dying while using a lawnmower or being struck by four meteorites, than the one in a million risk of dying after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Ad agency Hardhat co-founder Dan Monheit told Deborah Knight the campaign taps into a behavioural science heuristic called the “availability bias”.

“It’d be a very, very miserable existence if all we did was sit in our homes and try not to die, every single day.

“We hope if nothing else, we’ve sparked some conversations and convinced people to take the plunge.”