Swine Flu, Tamiflu & Viral Marketing
Protect yourself from the swine flu scare, wear a mask!
Do you consider dying of swine flu in the next few days? We have the perfect swine flu resource for you, concise and insightful. As this here is a marketing publication, a so called “SEO blog” we will also cover the “viral marketing” aspect of this flu scare.
- Is swine flu really dangerous?
To be honest I managed to ignore the news and swine flu jokes for a few days. Now I got a cold myself so I thought why not just go with the flow and write about this latest hype. I mean:
Swine flu is bigger than Twitter, it’s even bigger than Google, it’s scarier than terrorism and the world economic crisis combined. Hell, it may be even bigger and scarier than bird flu!
Remember the bird flu? Remember the millions of people who died of it? Well no, just a few people died all over the world taken together. On the other hand an anti-viral drug called Tamiflu, previously a huge failure at the pharma market, has seen a tremendous soar in demand.
Viral marketing is usually a metaphor describing the spread of a meme (piece of information) like a virus. It’s self replicating and spreading very quickly. I will show how viral marketing for Tamiflu converges with the real or rather hyperreal swine flu virus.
First I will focus on the facts about swine flu though: I just read a dozen or more articles about it and do not know much more than before reading all of them. So I picked a few resources for those of you who are about to hit the panic button.
- First off we have 36 thousands! flu deaths in the US annually, already 13k this year. So this pandemic is kind of second rate as of now with just a few dozens of swine flu cases in the US and only one US citizen (a toddler) killed in a over a week and 5 confirmed cases in the UK. Don’t get me wrong every human life lost is tragic but clearly this is no world wide emergency or pandemic at all yet. Usually kids, the chronically ill and elderly die of flu. So this recent flu death seems to be in accordance with the norm.
- In case you think the swine flu is something new you err: Already in 1976 we had a major national swine flu scare in the US but in the end only one person died of the flu virus while hundreds died due to vaccine side effects.
- Today the swine flu seems not as dangerous as expected as well. Recent 45 cases in a New York school have been ignored by the authorities for long enough to kill off half of NYC but nothing like that happened. Not even one of the students died.
- We live in hyperreal times as some philosophers and sociologist use to call it. Things that get multiplied by the media seem to be much larger than thy are in reality. Larger than life so to say. Google News listed some 35k recent stories about swine flu. Swine flu is one of the most popular topics globally for a few days now. Another comparison: Here in Germany where I live we have ca 5k dead in car accidents each year. On the other hand we hand no terrorism related killings in almost 20 years. Nonetheless the threat f terrorism is omnipresent in all media daily and every years new state laws strip the last remainders of civil liberties we had to protect us from it. Guess what? How many media outlet report about the car accidents? Just those that write that we had less people killed than last year. Below 5k this time.
- There is big money in swine flu! You might brush off the Tamiflu example I give as one of the many “conspiracy theories”. On the other hand it’s far easier to demonstrate that there is big money in the swine flue business. The Obama administration already applied for a 1.5+ billion dollars swine flu budget, just days and a few cases of it being reported. This number may seem small in times of needy banks getting trillions but it might grow quickly. Who gets the money? Who earns money due to a swine flu scare? Big pharma. Who exactly though?
I remember when bird flu was all the rage a few years ago. I was really concerned back then. I collected all kinds of information about the cases and how it spread. As I am a SEO I thought about setting up a blog or microsite collecting the info. I even considered to become a Tamiflu affiliate to sell to my visitors. Well that was the evil part of me.
On the other hand I just wanted to inform, as I was astounded by the huge buzz the bird flu created and the lack of comprehensive and down to earth resources that don’t panic but assess the situation. I quickly noticed that most even slightly relevant domain names containing bird flu or even the virus abbreviation had been taken already. Searching in Google always brought some spammy black hat SEO sites capitalizing on the scare.
So apparently a flu scare is good for SEO!
Well, I wasn’t happy with the results so dived in deeper into that topic. Finally I discovered some dissident voices questioning the bird flu scare tactics. Moreover I found out that the anti-viral medicine hailed as the only solution to bird flu, Tamiflu has been developed by a company owned largely by Donald Rumsfeld. Yes, that’s the guy who sold us an illegal war in Iraq based on lies and Orwellian propaganda tactics.
Now imagine my “surprise” when I read an AP story about swine flu today which I already linked above. A sentence that might not seem important at first says: “Some students received doses of Tamiflu [my emphasis], the medication that can help alleviate symptoms of the flu.”
Rumsfeld might not be in power anymore but he surely is still, or back, in business after the bird flu scare subsided. As someone who can spot viral marketing from afar I tell you one thing: Imagine a situation where the virus is the marketing itself and you are the only one to sell the product needed to fend off the panic.
Make sure to come back to this blog on Friday to read my regular column called Twitter Friday. Next week I will also publish the second part of the huge non-Google SEO resources list so consider returning then too. In case the articles should not appear on SEOptimise I’m probably dead though as the swine flu could kill me by then. Please link this article and also my SEO blog then! I want my 15 minutes of fame!
You don’t need a real virus for viral marketing.
I’m not encouraging bioterrorsim or something. Language is a virus itself as a famous poet once stated. As we see in the case of swine flu though viral marketing is most successful when you create both: Supply and demand.
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
@phatstrawz or is the swine just a ‘viral’ marketing campaign by tamiflu? Swine Flu, Tamiflu & Viral Marketing http://tinyurl.com/cpjyq8
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
“Viral” marketing, indeed! http://tinyurl.com/cpjyq8
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Swine Flu, Tamiflu & Viral Marketing http://bit.ly/Wt2pN
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Swine Flu, Tamiflu & Viral Marketing http://bit.ly/Wt2pN
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
http://tinyurl.com/cpjyq8
September 2nd, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Swine Flu, Tamiflu & Viral Marketing | SEOptimise http://tinyurl.com/cpjyq8
April 29th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I think you are so right on. Did you know that Tamiflu was a bust this year because there was not much of a regular flu season, and the virus proved imune to Tamiflu. All that medicine is sitting on the shelf, unsold, waiting to expire at the end of the season. I do hope this is “viral marketing,” as you say, because an epidemic is a scary thing to imagine, but, I suppose, that is precisely why the tactic would work so well.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
This swine flu is just the impetus needed to bring a USDA program to the forefront.
Have you heard of NAIS? Those who know what it is are against it. NAIS is being pushed as an animal disease tracking program…but NAIS(national animal identification system) is first and foremost, a business plan designed to benefit corporate agriculture and factory farming so they can sell their product on the global level but they way it works will put those who own livestock on a private basis, (such as the Amish) including whoever raised or owned that animal to to be under more surveillance than illegals, drug dealers or child molesters.
The part about tracking animal disease was added later.
All those who own even one cow, pig, horse, chicken or other farm animal will be required to register their premises, microchip (RFID) each and every last critter, no matter if it is a pet or potential food.
Then they must, under threat of huge fines, tell the govt about all birth, death and off-property movement reports (within 24 hours) on every last critter on the place.
If animal disease is even suspected in an area, the USDA can go in and kill all the animals. (6 mile radius or 140 sq miles of animals dead that never came in contact with each other!)
The claimed purpose of this oh-so-wonderful-thanks-for-protecting-us program is to provide 48 hour traceback should a disease be suspected. Animals within a 6 mile radius could be killed, though most diseases are preventable, can be vaccinated against or the animal recovers.
The only problem with this program is that e-coli happens after the cow is slaughtered, which is when NAIS tracking stops. The beef is most vulnerable to being tainted in those processing plants.
And the fact the majority of beef is raised by corporate agriculture, who will not be required to tag and track each animal because they raise them in lots, they they get only ONE number per groups of animals. Any one of those critters in that group could be diseased and who would know. But as long as there are appearances of something being done, the city dwellers will eat in peace, while granny and her few egg hens will be tracked closer than the illegals everybody is making such a fuss about and that will make our beef supply oh so safe. See nonais dot org for more info on the true impact NAIS will have on all of us who eat!
The USDA claimed a reason for NAIS was to track and prevent mad cow disease. Yet when Creekstone Beef wanted to test every cow they process for BSE, the USDA says they cannot!!! Creekstone had to take the USDA to court to sue for the right to test for BSE! And what does my reporting to the USDA when I take my horse off my property have to do with big ag selling beef to Japan?
There are already disease protocols in place and they work. NAIS tracking stops at time of slaughter which is when many food safety issues occur by mishandling the meat.
I suggest checking out nonais.org and read about how NAIS will negatively affect everyone who eats. The British hoof and mouth disease was traced back to the local lab it had escaped from. The millions of animals killed, only a few thousand tested positive for the disease from which cattle can be cured or vaccinated. The British ag officials do not want to vaccinate. The famous ‘bird flu’ that ran from China through Turkey less than 300 humans out of 6 billion died from that disease while thousands die from regular flu in the US each month.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Has anyone been tracking the spread of swine flu on this website http://www.swine-flu-tracker.com/? It seems every time I check it the swine flu spreads.
May 2nd, 2009 at 4:45 am
I actually bought quite a bit of tamiflu for my whole family this week. Feels good knowing we at least have some anti-virals if symptoms or the outbreak itself explodes. Tamiflu.tk was the only place i could find with no prescription required, and yes it is the real tamiflu from Roche Holdings, Rumsfeld’s company!
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Spot on mate – I was a little worried, a pandemic is always going to happen and one day it may well just kill millions….
But the scare mongering is mad. We heard on the news that 150 died in Mexico but the stats said 12 out of 312 in Mexico http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpr/archives/2009/hpr1709.pdf
That’s seems to be a lower percentage of deaths per case that usual annual influenza epidemics we see each year which kill something like 250K to 500K out of 3m to 5m cases (that’s taken from the World Health Organisation).
Madness!
May 18th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Do you do all your own writing? Or do you outsource some of it? I’m looking for some similar content for my blog! These are great posts!
May 27th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition :) keep on rocking, people.
August 18th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Here is an interactive Swine Flu tracker which shows how the virus is spreading – http://www.tamiflushop.com/swine-flu-coverage.asp
October 19th, 2009 at 10:03 am
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