Dracula and the vaccine

Romania has one of the highest vaccine hesitancy rates in Europe, around 50%. They’re starting to get… creative.

Leverage what you got

Now most non-Romanians, when asked about Romania will struggle a bit to name something famous about the country. Many will, however, eventually come up with the Dracula legends. So… if that’s what you’ve got, then leverage it to solve your vaccine hesitancy problem!

From the venerable BBC comes a story of just that. ^[1] Apparently, visitors to the 14th century castle alleged to have belonged to Vlad Tepes are being offered the Pfizer vaccine as well.

The plan is an interesting move, from the point of view of marketing psychology: show up on a weekend in May, get a vaccination, and then get free admission to the exhibit of medieval torture instruments. I’ve heard of people offering free food or beer or even money, but never torture instruments. I guess the fans of Dracula are a select bunch. I wonder what the Pfizer marketing department thinks of this?

You kinda gotta admire the purity of it, if nothing else.

What I want to know is: do they do it with 2 needles in the side of your neck? You know, for realism.

Addendum 2021-May-10, afternoon:

A Romanian friend found the original advertisement on the official government Facebook page. And, of course, immediately thought all of us Weekend Readers should know about it:

I just saw your post about Dracula and as a proud Transylvanian I thought you might enjoy the actual original commercial. :) I have stolen it from the Facebook page of the official Government vaccination campaign. It says something like:

“Who’s afraid of the vaccine? Get your courage and come to Bran. One little sting and then you’re done (and no appointment needed).”

They are also having vaccination at the beach, at the open air music concerts (at least I hope they are open air) and in drive throughs. I really liked the Dracula one , although I am seriously worried about the Romanian vaccination campaign (and the education level and effects of crazy propaganda).

I can’t make up stuff like this.

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Notes & References

1: BBC Staff, “Covid: Dracula’s castle in Romania offers tourists vaccine”, BBC, 2021-May-09. ↩