At the request of Dutchess County, NY government, Go Gladys was commissioned to create specific content to motivate vaccine-hesitant pockets throughout the county. The campaign was designed to dovetail with work being done by a vaccine coalition with flyers, tabling at events and use of social media. The task for Go Gladys was to produce radio and video commercials to provide a narrative that will reach target populations as they are at home, in their car and on the internet.
Dutchess County Vaccination Video
Targeting specific audiences with COVID-19 vaccine videos/radio
Creating memorable themes and addressing reasons for vaccine hesitancy
Through research into the issues that reduce vaccine uptake, the Go Gladys creative team created a series of radio and video concepts that took on hesitation motivation, one topic at a time. Each of the 7 radio spots was also adapted for Spanish speaking audiences and there was a matching series of digital ads that complemented the messaging. Overarching themes included “Get the Facts, Get Vaxxed,” and “Don’t hesitate, vaccinate.”
Demographic data indicated that older residents had shown a strong commitment to being vaccinated. Younger audiences, adults, parents of young children, and others needed more encouragement. Video was deemed to be a particularly effective medium to reach these audiences. A series of videos were filmed, “Why I got vaxxed.” Those included in the series to date include a young woman of 22 whose work in the public creates potential exposure to Covid-19 that she is reluctant to bring home to her family, especially her 94 year old grandmother. A second subject is an administrator of veterans affairs for the County. His motivation for vaccination was the desire to protect “my family, my friends and my veterans, and my veterans are my family and friends,”
Reaching young audiences with a beatboxer inspired video
A unique approach was aimed at vaccine-hesitant younger audiences to appear on platforms such as Twitch and TikTok. For that we recruited a world ranked beat boxer and his team to do something completely different. Go Gladys provided scripting that was then incorporated into the beatbox style. Diversity was an important factor and the participants were of various ethnicities.
While it is too soon to gauge the effectiveness of these campaigns, vaccination is increasing and we have more work to do to move the needle into a positive direction.