President Biden recently announced his intentions to appoint Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, as the new director of the CDC after Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, steps down at the end of June. Cohen inherits an agency "wracked with challenges and low morale." Polls show vaccine hesitancy has risen and public trust in the CDC has plummeted.
A similar situation once confronted a previous director. Just over 2 decades ago, Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, entered as CDC director after the agency did a poor job handling communications about the anthrax attacks, which took place just after the events of 9/11. Gerberding responded appropriately, identifying communication as a top priority and then overseeing the expansion of the media resources of CDC. She turned things around so significantly that by the time I first visited CDC in 2010 to run communications workshops, morale was at an all-time high. Staff would brag to me with proud smiles saying, "Every year, polling shows that CDC is almost the most trusted government institution, second only to Fort Knox, which is understandable as they are trusted with all the gold."
Looking at the sad situation now, I think of magnate Warren Buffett who famously said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." As a successful businessman and strategic communicator, could Buffett and his peers in the business world be an effective resource now for the communication problems facing CDC and public health in general? Here's why I think their expertise is needed.
A Public Health Priority: Restoring Trust in the Brand
Similar to 2001, Cohen enters the director position after a series of disastrous events, and some of the problems have risen to new heights. Not only has CDC lost the public's trust, it also has lost trust in one of its most powerful resources: vaccination.
In January last year, an article in the Washington Post said, "Almost 2 years into the coronavirus pandemic, the movement to challenge vaccines' safety -- and reject vaccine mandates -- has never been stronger. An ideology whose most notable adherents were once religious fundamentalists and minor celebrities is now firmly entrenched among tens of millions of Americans."
The events of the pandemic encompassed a painful dichotomy. On the one hand, research scientists were heroic in developing life-saving vaccines. This was summarized in February in a four-page article in Science titled, "The NIH-led research response to COVID-19."
But that article revealed a basic problem. It consisted of 17 paragraphs, yet only one was about the massively failed communications efforts. The next to last paragraph began with the admission, "The COVID-19 pandemic has also shone a bright light on the limitations of our current science communications systems." It went on to say little more than the standard refrain of, "more research is needed." What the 32 co-authors did not say was that the science community alone cannot solve the societal challenges highlighted and exacerbated by the pandemic.
A new mindset is needed. There needs to be a culture shift emphasizing that effective public communication comes down to one word: branding. The CDC is a brand, as is the term "vaccine." For the sake of public health progress, the public needs to trust these brands. Right now, they don't.
Maintaining public trust in a brand is central to business. You could see it way back in 1964 when lawyers from McDonald's sent a cease and desist letter to a tiny mom and pop hamburger restaurant in Alabama. That was an early example of protecting a brand. You could see it again in 1982 when Johnson & Johnson resurrected the brand of Tylenol after seven people died from tampered product. Over $100 million was spent on physical action (new tamper-proof packaging) and improved communication. Their market share of over-the-counter pain relief medicine had plummeted from 35% to 8% in just weeks, but their response restored the brand in less than a year as it became a textbook example of resurrecting a brand.
The business world has hundreds of books and courses on brand defense, collapse, and resurrection. This knowledge is now needed throughout the biomedical community in preparation for a possible next pandemic. New voices and new perspectives must be brought into the process. In a Second Opinions piece last year, I pointed out that of the 31 experts involved in the two pandemic advisory teams assembled by the White House, none were from the business world, while only one was from communications. The consequences are what we now see with the communication failures and loss of public trust.
One of the veteran wildlife ecologists who works with my communications group told us an old expression from his profession: "Why is it that the solutions to most conservation problems are social yet are given to biologists to solve?"
This is the same dilemma we faced during, and continue to face after, the pandemic. The business community understands branding, brand defense, damaged brands, and brand recovery. If CDC previously didn't know where to begin in seeking their assistance, incoming director Cohen might try starting with Buffett. An infusion of new perspectives is the only way to restore the respect and authority the CDC needs and deserves.
Randy Olson, PhD, is the director of the ABT Framework Narrative Training program (ABTFramework.com), author of Houston, We Have a Narrative, and 2020 recipient of the John P. McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication from the Southwest Chapter of the American Medical Writers Association.