THE CHALLENGE
Who doesn’t love a comeback? Beginning in February 2021, The Idea Marketing worked with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to develop and implement the second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
THE SOLUTION
Applying an equitable lens, a multifaceted media mix was crafted that took into account each groups’ starting points, barriers and preferences. The campaign was placed on traditional routes of communication like TV, billboard, radio, social media, bus shelters, benches and digital banners/videos.
Campaign materials also popped up in the most unexpected of places, from barber shops in Denver to rodeos in Greeley and transit in Grand Junction to Hispanic markets in Pueblo.
Novel situations like a global pandemic meant an ever-shifting environment, where new scientific findings and continuously updated data take precedence over established plans. Hence, our team developed nine sub-campaigns, each responding to an immediate need, whether statewide or at the local level.
Post campaign research nodded to the effectiveness and awareness achieved. Around 65% of Coloradans recalled the campaign creative when questioned five months later. Yet there perhaps is no better proof than the fact that, we beat the goal of vaccinating 70% of Coloradans by the Fourth of July a day early.
INFLUENCERS TO COMBAT MISINFORMATION
A social influencer initiative was just the thing to fill an informational void and combat the mis- and disinformation around COVID vaccines.
Instead of the typical social media influencers, like the Charli D’Amelio’s of the world, we deployed social influencers connected to their communities at its core. Influencers accurately reflected the interests, professions, lifestyles, and geographic scope of our state. Influencers ranged from mom-bloggers to teachers, faith leaders, bikers, community organizers, firefighters, photographers, and even a cattle rancher.
The objective wasn’t to preach on vaccinations, but to provide proven data and information to empower audiences to make an informed decision.
FROM SOCIAL MEDIA TO MASS MEDIA
Our team drafted the guidelines, and made the information readily available so that each influencer could give it their personal spin. The results were original songs performed on Facebook, Tik Tok dances explaining the facts, skits in Spanish for Snapchat and Tik Tok, along with hundreds of photos and videos posted to Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter.
As the campaign progressed, the influencer initiative’s success garnered local, national and worldwide media coverage: from a small newspaper in Arkansas to the New York Times, The Guardian, and France Inter. Our efforts spawned a range of copy-cat initiatives across the nation, and even garnered comparisons to the White House influencer initiative, which was launched six months after we had proven it worked at the state level.
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