Our Comeback

BACKGROUND

“Our Comeback” is an integrated campaign to raise awareness among every demographic of San Mateo County, CA about the importance of working together to combat the spread of COVID-19. This entry is for the second and third phases of an initiative we began in 2020 with new creative and media strategies in 2021 as the pandemic continued its unpredictable path. We built on the awareness of the importance of masking, social, distancing and handwashing to the need for the community to get vaccinated and boosted.

Our campaign underscored how coming back and recovering from the impact of COVID-19 would truly take everyone: government officials, essential workers, multi-generational households, and frontline healthcare heroes alike. A critical requirement of the campaign was to reach every corner of the county. The creative was translated into Spanish, Chinese, and Tagalog to ensure the diverse communities got the important health message and our team was developing brand elements that were inclusive.

PHASE 2: RESILIENCY

Measuring public sentiment is an imperfect process, but one that requires cooperation from every county agency. True North convened with health officers, equity team members, and county managers to determine if the campaign was reaching every corner of San Mateo County and how it was being received by key demographics. Recognition was high, and the campaign was spreading a positive message; however, there was a need for the messaging to shift to a more direct call for resiliency and tailored creative for Chinese and Spanish-speaking communities.

PHASE 3: THE VACCINATION CAMPAIGN

Following Phase 2, the vaccination efforts began to ramp up. San Mateo County Health focused their efforts on creating a vaccine rollout process that could support the demand of the residents. County officials came to True North to develop a vaccine promotion campaign that is focused on educating hard-to-reach communities about the urgency to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and the reasons to believe in its efficacy. The campaign includes targeted television, print, and out-of-home to deliver all the reasons residents can have confidence in the vaccine and shouldn’t wait to protect themselves and their families.