Zhi Hao, Author at Goody Feed

Still undecided on whether to get a needle 'embedded' in your arm? Well, how about some incentives? Like... a lot of incentives. There’s a Website That Lists All Promotions for Vaccinated People in S’pore According to TODAYonline, tons of companies have joined in on the whole vaccination front, with incentives such as discounts and vouchers to encourage reluctant personnel. In fact, the list of participating merchants has gotten so substantial that there's now a compilation of ongoing promos. The compiled list, published on an online platform called iamvaccinated.sg, was drawn up by Healthcare firm Minmed Group. At present timing, it has more than 50 participating merchants, with the validity of offers stretching till 31 December 2021. Apparently, Minmed’s executive director Sharmaine Chng started reaching out to "like-minded partners" as early as February this year, for potential collaborations. “We wanted to inject some fun and light-heartedness into the vaccination drive,” she said. “Covid-19 also affected the retail and food-and-beverage (F&B) industry... (so) we were also hopeful that #iamvaccinatedsg can generate some exposure and marketing opportunities for (these firms)... through the perks they offer." Promotions Apart from car-sharing firm BlueSG and coffee chain Flash Coffee, participating firms also include the likes of Korean cosmetics brand The Face Shop, Chinese medicine firm Eu Yan Sang, health chain GNC, Hard Rock Cafe and many more. For the foodies out there, you may also be stoked to know that cheesecake firm Cat & the Fiddle and popular restaurant chain Shake Shack have joined the endeavour as well. You can view a full list of deals here. Would The Incentives Work Though? Though well-intentioned, Associate Professor Ang Swee Hoon from the National University of Singapore Business School feels that the incentives are not significant enough to change an anti-vaccine's mind. “Such rewards are appealing to those already vaccinated and this is sort of the icing on the cake for them. But for those anti-vaccine, this is way too small a prize,” she said. “You need something more. Why would people be anti-vaccine? Because they must hold something really, really important to them, inherently something against it. And a pack of fries and a free drink will not cut it for them to change their mind.” And engineer Balakrishnan Kannan, 28, concurs, stating that the rewards are "too insignificant". “Plus, they are for products and services that I won’t use. My concerns about having adverse side effects due to the vaccine are bigger and more worrying. These perks don’t do anything for me,” he told TODAY. Instead, Professor Ang proposed that companies offer such rewards in groups, in order to create healthy peer pressure. “So there is some peer pressure there to get your friends to be vaccinated so that you can go out as a group in order to get some reward,” she said. Ho Ching A while back, Ho Ching has, too, considered the plausibility of incentive-driven vaccinations. However, she stated that now is not the time. Why later, you may wonder. Well, it’s apparently due to the whole supply and demand curve. “Anyway, not time to do this, bcos we have supply constraints, and not demand constraints,” she said. Instead, a good time might be somewhere around the 70-75% vaccination rate mark here in Singapore. “I expect we may start non monetary “incentives” when we can get to 70~75% fully vaccinated,” she wrote. “This is just a natural progression as we get better community “herd” protection.” As such, one may expect more 'attractive' incentives to be given out in due time. But at present timing, I think we can all be satiated with some free fries from Shake Shack. Featured Image: Facebook (Kittea, Cat & the Fiddle Cakes, Garage Society)