Bates wins Effie for vital National Immunisation Campaign

At the Sri Lanka Effies held recently, Bates Strategic Alliance won its first Effie for a highly significant national campaign. The client was UNICEF and the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health, who selected Bates’ insightful concept and proposal for the National Immunisation Campaign, in a competitive pitch.

The challenge of the assignment was to provide credibility and media support for the programme and re-establish parental compliance in immunising their children. Though Sri Lanka had achieved universal success with immunisation in the past, this success had made these diseases invisible and together with certain adverse incidents and negative media reports, parents had been dissuaded from immunising their children. Immunisation had thus fallen below acceptable levels in recent years, posing a threat.

Bates’ concept used Sri Lanka’s traditional folklore of thovils, kavis and unique devil-dancing masks created to represent the dreaded diseases in a campaign that urged parents to immunise their children and keep the dormant disease-causing demons at bay.

Bates demonstrated its integrated communications prowess by combining advertising, below-the line elements and a significant PR thrust to garner critical editorial cover to re-establish confidence in the National Immunisation Programme. In five months, significant progress was made towards the goal of universal immunisation.  

Bates Strategic Alliance’s Chairman and CEO Nimal Gunewardena commented: “We made a single entry this year and won this for a nationally important campaign. We are grateful to our UNICEF and Epid Unit clients for seeing the potential of our concept and awarding us this assignment, inspiring us with their own dedication to the cause, and working along with us to achieve and research the progress that was made.”

The Epid Unit’s Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Paba Palihawadana showed her appreciation when she said: “I wish to congratulate the Bates team on this win. It reflected the success the campaign had in achieving the objective of the process, which was to revamp the national immunisation programme after its recent setbacks. In that way, it was a nationally significant triumph and a milestone in the health of children in this country.”

UNICEF’s Development Communications Specialist Farzana Khan said: “This could not have been achieved if not for the great team effort. The professionalism, ‘can do’ attitude and support of the team of doctors at the Epid Unit has been a key success factor. The Bates Team has always gone the extra mile and delivered above expectations. UNICEF’s H&N Team has always been there to guide us in all technical aspects.”  

Bates Strategic Alliance prides itself in its strong integrated capability, in addition to its strategic focus and proven creativity, and its penchant for driving significant national and brand building campaigns.