The World Health Organisation partnered with Ogilvy | Social.Lab South Africa to launch 'Vaccines Bring Us Closer' global campaign

World Immunisation Week brings together a diverse coalition of partners to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease.

Immunisation saves millions of lives every year and is widely recognised as one of the world’s most successful health interventions. Yet, there are still nearly 20 million children in the world today who are not getting the vaccines they need, and many miss out on vital vaccines during adolescence, adulthood and into old age.

This year's theme, ‘Vaccines Bring Us Closer’, aims to tell the story of how vaccines bring us closer to good health and wellbeing for everyone around the world.

As part of the 2021 campaign, WHO, together with Ogilvy partners in South Africa, the UK and in the USA, have created a campaign to increase trust and confidence around vaccines, including routine immunisation, and investment, to remove barriers to access.

Ogilvy Social.Lab South Africa was tasked to develop a total of 270+ assets for the campaign, giving it a bold and impactful visual identity in the healthcare sector.

“We worked with our team to create something simple, eye catching, bold and social first, using a vibrant palette of colours that represent the diversity in the world around us. We managed to pull together hundreds of assets in multiple languages, combining forces from our offices around the globe,” says Martin Magner, creative director at Ogilvy Social.Lab South Africa.

Magner adds: “Our campaign visuals aimed to capture the full spectrum of people and occasions we all know and love. We wanted to tap into the emotional connections of the world and the importance of vaccination in bringing us closer together. This is truly a remarkable team effort by all individuals involved.”

As part of the campaign, interactive social posts have been developed to encourage online engagement, and for audiences to share their hopes for the future. The campaign is now planned to be rolled out globally.

Christophe Chantraine, managing director at Ogilvy Social.Lab South Africa: “This year’s campaign aims to build solidarity in vaccination as a public good that saves lives and protects health.

“Vaccines themselves continue to advance, bringing us closer to a world free from the likes of TB and cervical cancer, and ending suffering from childhood diseases. Through our ideation process we wanted to come up with a solution that is optimistic. Whilst vaccines are not the silver bullet to the world’s problems, it’s a step forward towards a happier and healthier global community,” Chantraine concluded.

Since 2019, Ogilvy | Social.Lab South Africa is positioned as Ogilvy’s global centre of excellence for content and media, working as an agile structure together with other markets and partners to deliver reliable, cost-efficient and scalable digital solutions. The work for the World Health Organisation is a prime example of leveraging South African resources and capabilities to deliver state-of-the-art work with global resonance.

World Immunisation Week was celebrated every year from 24-30 April.

For more information on the campaign, visit www.who.int/campaigns/world-immunization-week

Team credits

UK

Laura LeRoy
Ngoni Gudo
Matthew Straker-Taylor
Yolanda Davis
Sophie Novak

US

Renata Florio
Richard Hatzfeld

ZA

Martin Magner
Ane Wolmarans
Robyn Newham
Jonathan Pienaar
Matt McFarlane