Today there are some fascinating articles in the news that relate directly to a previous article I wrote entitled The Marketing of “Revolution”. The news story in question relate to the naming of the current Influenza outbreak of The Swine Flu.
The Swine Flu gets it’s name because it is a virus that originated or traveled through pigs at some point, hence the “swine” reference. This is fairly common knowledge to anyone that has followed the news in the past week. There also appears to be some human and bird virus in there as well, but it’s a bit hard to say People Swine Bird Flu, I guess.
At first there were calls to rename it because of religious sensitivities to the term. Apparently the thought here is that those opposed to eating pork do not want to name their viruses after them either. Then, the pork industry took offense because the term Swine Flu might be hurting their bottom line. Notice the link in that article is from the economy section and not the health section.
I suggest renaming the current virus to something more pleasant like “The Shiny Happy Flu” or maybe we can use the philosophy of the lobby groups and use negative connotations as a jumping off point. We can try to stop crime by calling it the “Breaking and Entering Flu”, or maybe we can get my favorite rock in space reclassified as a planet by calling it the Pluto Flu! My personal favorite is the “Dependence on Foreign Oil Flu”. The options are truly endless.
This is a real-time example of the transfer of word meaning from “real-life” to a marketing effort. This is an interesting time to follow the effects of lobby groups on our lives. It is very easy to supplant the reality of situations with a particular agenda.
well and now it is the h1-n1 flu. stay tuned…soon hummer will be up in arms and blaming this new label for the decreased sales on their civilian off-road vehicles. tippy toe…tippy toe…thou shalt not offend. lame.
oh and thanks for getting that ridiculously annoying r.e.m. song in my head. nice.
Die Pigs Die
At first glance, what the lobbyists are doing might make sense considering that Egypt has ordered the slaughter of ALL of their pigs because of this. But I think we need to stop enabling half-thinking, even if by a government official.
What Egypt ordered was absurd and they should be above it.
Great article. They should just have named it for what it truly is…the “Mexican flu”!!!, just kidding. We get blamed for everything in this country anyway..just kidding, why not this? just kidding!!
I very much agree about the Egypt situation. I think it is going to have a multitude of repercussions throughout the (social) structure of that country.
Boo-urns I say.