GoVAX
GoVAX, Maryland! Let’s end COVID.
Challenge
GKV was retained to develop a campaign that educated, engaged, and activated Marylanders to get vaccinated, which was part of the public communications plan to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in the worst global pandemic in a century.
Challenger Brand Solution
Symbols of Re-evaluation
The two-year-plus GoVAX campaign, which was introduced by then Governor Larry Hogan at a statewide press conference in January 2021, incorporated testimonials by more than 150 “trusted leaders” from across Maryland who served as GoVAX Ambassadors. GoVAX Ambassadors included physicians, first responders, faith and community leaders, sports figures, research scientists, health officers, elected officials, and others.
GoVAX Maryland!
The campaign’s success was tied directly to the branded rallying cry created by GKV: GoVAX, Let’s end COVID, Maryland. The slogan was simple, visually memorable, and adaptable. Within weeks, GoVAX was omnipresent across the state.
Hard-to-Reach Audiences
The campaign also featured many unique tactics and creative executions designed to reach specific and, in some cases, hard-to-reach audiences, such as:
- Communicating to Hispanic/Latino Marylanders with a renowned Latina immunology specialist from Johns Hopkins Medicine, neighborhood-based PSAs featuring Latino families and businessowners in both Spanish and English, and the use of a sound truck broadcasting COVID vaccination and prevention messaging in Spanish in targeted zip codes.
- Pinpointmapping directed media funds to neighborhoods based on vaccination rates.
- PSAs using real Maryland families talking to other families and real Maryland kids talking to other kids to demonstrate, on a personal and relatable level, why and how getting vaccinated protects them
- PSAs developed to speak to the disabilities community, including the developmental and intellectual disabilities audience
- Street teams deployed to barber shops, hair salons, grocery stores, state parks, and other community gathering places
- Digital ads served to parents checking their kids’ sports and activities schedules
- Cash register receipts at selected retailers adjacent to pharmacies
- Video content geared to parents shown in waiting rooms of pediatric practices
This campaign produced almost $3 million or 30% more in free added-value media placements and production services.
1200+ Campaign Assets
Over the course of this partnership with the Maryland Department of Health, GKV created close to 1,200 ads and creative assets, including:
- 158 TV ads
- 98 radio ads
- 90 out-of-home ads
- 769 digital and social ads
- 72 brochures and flyers
- Comprehensive website (updated daily) with multiple campaign landing pages;
Results
- Using the materials listed above, MDH served 1.5 billion impressions across both traditional and digital mediums. These efforts contributed to more than 11 million sessions to the covidlink website.
- Maryland’s vaccination rate far exceeded the national average in every age and demographic category, with 91.9% of eligible Marylanders getting vaccinated, the sixth most vaccinated state in the country.
- MDH was contacted by the National Governors Association and asked to present the GoVAX campaign to its membership, stating it was “one of the most effective campaigns in the country.”
- MDH and the Governor’s Office were contacted by the State of Delaware requesting to use the GoVAX “Real Kids” campaign to help motivate parents to vaccinate their children.
- 16% more parents vaccinated their children in Maryland (62%) than the national average (46%), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
- Focus groups and survey participants consistently ranked the Maryland Department of Health, which disseminated information through the GoVAX campaign, as one of their most trusted sources of information, after their own physicians and family friends and relatives
- Nearly 75% of Maryland residents surveyed reported being aware of the GoVAX campaign within the first year of the initiative.
- Participants in focus groups conducted by GKV reported receiving COVID-related news from three primary sources — Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, the covidLINK website, and GoVAX television commercials.
