Don’t wait, vaccinate! Nationwide PSA encourages veterans to get their COVID-19 vaccine

AdTechCares, co-founded in 2020 by Amobee and 50 partners from across the advertising ecosystem, has partnered with the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination (VCV)—formed earlier this year with six leading veterans organizations—and Venables Bell + Partners to launch a nationwide public service announcement (PSA) campaign to encourage full vaccination and help put an end to the Covid-19 crisis.  

AdTechCares and VCV worked closely with Venables Bell + Partners to develop the creative for the integrated campaign by looking to the past—from Rosie the Riveter to Smokey the Bear—for inspirational images that drove Americans to work together and overcome obstacles by appealing to a shared sense of duty, and updated these iconic images to reflect the America we see today. The “Call to Arms” campaign enlists arms of every kind from “the tatted, the toned and the sun-deprived” to encourage all Americans to get vaccinated because “better times are within arms reach.” The ads end with a simple and direct call-to-action: “Don’t wait. Vaccinate.” Mass market messaging will appear across broadcast, digital, social, video and Times Square out-of-home. Integrated media for this effort was donated and a sampling of the creative can be viewed here.”

“As the Covid-19 crisis continues, even as the vaccines rollout, the advertising industry has an inherent duty to support fact-based journalism and to ensure continued access to accurate and timely information,” says Ryanne Laredo, Chief Customer Officer at Amobee and Co-Founder of AdTechCares. “It’s an honor for AdTechCares to work with the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination and their renowned veterans organizations and we’re confident we’ll replicate the success of our initial Covid-19 PSA campaign with a renewed focus on driving the public to credible vaccine information with the goal of keeping humanity well.” 

“Veterans are among one of the most trusted populations in the United States, and through the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination we are able to bring together these leading veterans organizations to build trust for the nationwide vaccination effort,” says Lorey Zlotnick, Chief Marketing Officer at Team Rubicon and founding member of the Veterans Coalition for Vaccination. “We are proud to launch a campaign that is visually representative of the communities that we serve and reaffirms the VCV’s priority and commitment to equitable vaccine distribution. We invite you to ‘roll up your sleeves’ and help us defeat this virus.”

“The national vaccination effort is the largest and most important mobilization in recent history. We felt that the messaging needed to be welcoming and optimistic, but also feel big, and really tap into people’s sense of duty to a larger cause; something the Veterans Coalition is very familiar with,” says Tyler Hampton, Creative Director at Venables Bell + Partners. “We couldn’t help but be inspired by the ‘in this together’ messaging and design harkening back to World War II.” 

The new campaign builds on the artwork and messaging of iconic home front effort posters with a modern twist. Venables Bell + Partners partnered with photographer Jim Hughes to photograph a wide range of masked people proudly displaying their vaccination bandages. Alice Blue Production Studio artists Lena Pigareva and David Waraksa then hand painted the images and created the typography to give them a vintage poster look. The campaign builds on a partnership between AdTech Cares and the Ad Council and it’s the biggest push in the history of the organizations.

Last March, Amobee launched a PSA campaign to lead consumers to authoritative sources like Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization to help the public understand the seriousness of Covid-19 and encourage mask wearing. Amobee’s campaign quickly evolved into the formation of the larger AdTechCares coalition, which now includes more than 50 companies spanning demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, agencies and data providers—including Universal McCann, eBay, DoubleVerify and others. That PSA campaign has served more than 4.8 billion impressions to over 2.6 billion people across dozens of countries in 50 languages with digital, video and out-of-home ads.

About Veterans Coalition for Vaccination

The Veterans Coalition for Vaccination will partner to convert vaccines to vaccinations. Utilizing veterans, we aim to build trust in the vaccine and fight the spread of misinformation. We have created a nationwide network that can quickly mobilize veteran volunteers to assist with the set up and management of vaccination sites. We aim to provide care to patients and support the decompression of the healthcare workforce; and ensure equitable distribution of the vaccine to communities often forgotten. 

The VCV’s founding members include Team Rubicon, Wounded Warrior Project, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Student Veterans of America (SVA), Team Red, White & Blue and The Mission Continues.