Client challenge

The Covid-19 pandemic brought one of the most significant challenges faced by the NHS and the first where people needed to be persuaded to take up vaccinations on such a scale and at such speed. In the social media echo chamber, energetic anti-vax campaigns promoted myths and built mistrust.

Some priority audiences needed to be engaged positively, proactively – and fast.

Our solution

We developed a series of discrete campaigns, starting with a set of animations in 16 community languages for NHS England as the basis for social media shares.

In North London, we formed a team within 24 hours to design and develop campaigns to engage young people using channels, messages and influencers that were clear, relatable and resonant.

The challenge was to reach audiences in very specific postcode areas and age/demographic profiles, using social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Our campaign drew on imagery quite different from traditional NHS campaigns, with extensive use of video and highly targeted social media, with one of the first uses of social media influencers at a local level. One of our organic influencer videos received approximately 100,000 views, trending on TikTok.

As with all Verve Communications campaigns, this was built on systematic development of messages and exhaustive testing of different message and image combinations through dynamic split testing.

In addition, we supported large-scale vaccination centre events with photo booths and face-to-face marketing teams.

The outcome

The success of these campaigns could be seen at the local level, with the StoneX Stadium vaccination centre in Barnet moving from the least well-used to the busiest local centre. For example, the StoneX Stadium campaign generated over 1 million impressions, 250k reach and 5,000 link clicks.

This shows both the importance and the potential of driving large-scale behaviour change through bespoke campaigns at a micro-level. For further information, read our Guide to Social Media.