The ads are part of a $ 250 million Covid-19 education campaign hosted by the US Department of Health and Human Services, which includes a podcast hosted by “a celebrity” outside the government, said the executive.
In addition to the podcast, Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor and host of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” told an ad about the vaccinations for the government campaign, according to the executive and an official of the Biden administration.
Dr Marcella Nunez-Smith, the leader of the Biden administration’s Covid-19 shares, said on CBS ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday that the government had been launched ‘on the verge of a national education campaign with the increase in vaccine supply.
Asked by CBS ‘Margaret Brennan about how the White House will convince younger Republicans and non-Biden supporters who are more reluctant to get the vaccine, Nunez-Smith said there will be unique messages for different groups in the US.
“We are preparing to launch the national public education campaign that will work closely with trusted messengers, influencers and others to reach everyone,” Nunez-Smith told Face the Nation. She would not give a specific date.
Work on the campaign began last fall, but the ads promoting vaccines have not yet been announced, as the vaccine is still in short supply and health officials do not want to create an extra demand, a Biden administration official told CNN said.
“Once we get to a point where the supply seems to exceed demand, then the messages about the confidence of the vaccine should start,” the official said, adding that “we are close” at the right time.
“The most difficult part of this effort from day one was to determine the messages with the provision of vaccines, and the magical moment is fast approaching,” the official said.
Changes of heart
“We know that behind the vaccine we are seeing now, there is a group that is hesitant and hesitant,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a longtime advisor to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Vaccine Prevention, said.
To prevent the virus from spreading, about 80% of Americans need to be vaccinated, Schaffner said.
“I am very concerned about these (polls) numbers,” said Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“I hope for the best for this campaign. I hope it is wonderfully effective in reaching people,” he added. “They need to use facts that go to our head, but they also need to reach people’s hearts, because it is the heart that causes behavior to change.”
A campaign without Hollywood glamor
The ‘vast majority’ of the $ 250 million budget for the campaign will be used to buy advertisements on television, radio, billboards and print and digital media, the government official said.
Robert Ehrlich, a former CEO of pharmaceutical companies, said the budget did not match advertising campaigns for well-known prescription drugs.
“This is a big campaign; $ 250 million can buy a lot of media,” said Ehrlich, who now consults pharmaceutical companies and is not involved in the government campaign.
HHS began releasing ads in December as part of a “Slow the Spread” campaign to encourage Americans to wear masks, distance themselves socially, avoid crowds and take the vaccine, the marketing manager said .
For the vaccine portion of the campaign, after extensive research and working with focus groups, the advertising managers decided to focus on a specific message to encourage people to be vaccinated for other people.
“It embraces this powerful idea that we have heard from people that they want to do it for others. They do not get it for me, to help me live longer, but because I want to protect my family, I want to protect my community. , I want to protect my culture, ”said the executive.
Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, will be used in the campaign, and other government doctors may be involved later.
“We are already thinking about how we can involve Dr. Walensky and Dr. Nunez-Smith and … Corbett of NIH. We have so many people who are so interested in her,” the executive said.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky is director of the CDC and Kizzmekia Corbett is a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who helped develop Covid-19 vaccines.
The campaign may at some point also include testimonies from people who were reluctant to get the vaccine but then decided to get it, the executive added.
At this point, the campaign will not include any known figures, except for Gates and the unnamed podcast host.
“We do not reach out to celebrities,” the Biden administration official said.
The marketing director close to the HHS campaign said celebrities could be expanded at some point, but that was not the right approach.
“There are other more effective ways to give people the information they need to make an informed choice,” said the marketing director. “In our research, we rarely, rarely, hear people say, ‘I’ll get the vaccine if some celebrity gets it.’ “
In formulating the content of the campaign, the marketing experts decided to target those who ‘vaccinate against vaccine’ – not on the relatively small group of Americans who are dissatisfied with vaccine, the marketing manager and government official said.
“We keep focused on the people interviewing the vaccine,” the official said. “There’s just so much advertising can do.”
CNN’s Samira Said contributed to this story.