Government response to swine flu not good enough

Government marketing on swine flu is well targeted, according to almost a fifth (19%) of respondents to Marketing Week’s online poll.

That almost 20% of the poll backed the Government’s marketing tactics at a time when it is coming under fire in the media over aspects of its pandemic response could be considered a surprising result.

However, the vast majority of respondents think the Government should get more targeted marketing messages out there – 79% agreed that the Government needs to do more targeted marketing to educate people and dispel myths around swine flu.

Only 2% sat on the fence and answered “don’t know”.

The Government was criticised over the weekend for an “ad-hoc” response to the flu outbreak.

A report from the House of Lords science and technology select committee on the Government’s flu pandemic preparations, which is due this week, is expected to be critical of the recently set up hotline, originally scheduled to be up and running by the end of April.

The National Childbirth Trust called for specific information about the risks to pregnant women to be distributed via midwives last week after conflicting newspaper reports spread confusion and fear.