The 7 most interesting Flu Marketing Case Studies

Swine flu marketing is not the prettiest topic I could be blogging about. This post is not meant to offend, but to point out for some resources that serious students of marketing can learn from.

If you find yourself bothered by the topic (or suspecting that you might be offended), I implore you to move on from this blog post. Thank you.

Now…

Like millions of others, when news of the rapidly spreading swine flu epidemic hit, I paid very close attention to the changing developments. I have a keen appreciation for history, and I happen to be one of those who believes that sometime in the next few years (or decades if we’re lucky), we will indeed face a nasty microbe of pandemic proportions.

Of course I hope that this won’t be the case, but factors like the hyper-connectedness of the modern world, and disturbing cases of widespread antibiotic abuse (in both humans and livestock), as well as other conditions that lead me to believe that certain “doomsday” warnings are not as far fetched as many people would like to think.

So you can imagine that I paid a great deal of attention to the reports of the Swine flu.

Ironically, I think that the explosion in information and communication technologies (mobile phones, internet, cable, satellite, etc) also will act as a stop gap so that we don’t experience the scale of death and destruction the world experienced as late as 1918 with the Spanish flu where over $50 million people died world wide. (See the swine flu googlemaps mashups that were tracked by hundreds of thousands at the height of the swine flu spread).

Having said all that, as a marketing consultant and student of marketing, I watched the blogosphere for the “swine flu marketing” lessons and case studies I was sure would quickly follow.

The marketing crowd did not disappoint…
From tacky (but probably profitable) swine flu mask advertising, to moderate and well thought out analyses of viral marketing based on events, there was something for everyone.

Out of all the material I came across, I’ve chosen the following marketing case studies as the best examples of Swine flu marketing lessons I came across.
Perry Marshall and Dan Zarrella are some people I’ve learnt a great deal from and if you’re interested in becoming a marketing technician you definitely want to subscribe to their blogs, newsletters, etc.

Enjoy!

3 Best Swine Flu Marketing Lessons
1. Swine Flu Google Ads – By Google Adwords Guru Perry Marshall
2. 7 Viral Marketing Lessons Learned from Swine Flu – By Dan Zarrell, Viral Marketing Scientist
3. Swine Flu and the Marketing of Supply and Demand – Great and short post by Albert at Mooladays

4 Food For Thought -Swine Flu Marketing Links
1. Even Nerd Doctors and Scientists are acting like marketers by piggy-backing on latest news.
2. Why E-learning and distance collaboration technologies will be aided by incidents like the Swine flu epidemic.
3. The Naming and Re-Naming of a Virus – PR and swine flu by CrisisBlogger
4. Lipstick on a Pig – The other side of the swine flu renaming argument