2020-2023 COVID, vaccinating the world
Chris Hopson, Chief Strategy Officer, NHS England
Judges comment
"COVID-19 was the biggest public health risk from infectious disease for 100 years. Successful vaccination campaigns, delivered at rapid speed, have been central to preventing unnecessary mortality and serious illness.
Every health system had to rapidly build awareness of the need for vaccination; overcome vaccine hesitancy; combat aggressive disinformation campaigns and support their population to come forward to the right place at the right time.
That’s involved a huge range of communications activity. From national campaigns to reassure on safety and demonstrate vaccine efficacy to millions of local campaigns letting people know exactly when and where they needed to be vaccinated.
Underpinning this has been an extraordinary partnership between the pharmaceutical industry; national health systems and their staff; millions of volunteers; a wide range of Non Governmental organisations and national Governments.
In less than 1,000 days more than 13 billion COVID vaccine doses have been administered globally. 70% of the world’s population has received at least one dose. At least 20 million lives have been saved. An extraordinary achievement."
Public Relations Work
Objectives: Promote the importance of vaccination, overcome vaccine hesitancy to limit the number of serious illnesses and deaths caused by COVID-19.
Target Audience: General public, with a focus on segments with vaccine hesitancy or limited access to accurate information.
Key messages: Vaccination is important, safe, and necessary.
Strategies and Tactics: The key focus in terms of PR was to build trust in vaccines and in the vaccination process. Tailoring messaging depending on the cultural and socio-economic background of targeted populations also played an important role.
Tools and Channels: The campaign mostly used traditional media outlets, public service announcements, social media channels (a mix of influencers, institutions, experts, and local community figures), IRL and online advertisements, and community programmes (such as local presentations and talks).
Implementation: Main forms of engagement included involvement of medical voices, sharing vaccination success stories, addressing concerns and myths, reaching out to local communities and trusted figures, and calls from healthcare agencies
Results: Approximately 70% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, saving at least 20 million lives.
Source:
Digital Commons
Provoke Media
London Assembly