A COVID-19 public awareness campaign driven by the Mastercard Foundation and public relations and strategic communications firm Engage BCW has been named among the top 40 public relations campaigns in the world in 2022 and awarded a Global SABRE Award.
These are the world’s biggest public relations awards programs and recognize the 40 best campaigns of the past year. This year, the top 40 campaigns were selected from 5,500 entries received from Asia, EMEA, North America, Latin America, and Africa.
At an award ceremony held in Washington, DC on October 26, 2022, and as part of Provoke Global 2022 public relations summit, the Mastercard Foundation Public Awareness Campaign, dubbed #ItsUpToUs received a Global SABRE Award ranking 27th globally and second in Africa.
In 2021, the Mastercard Foundation launched a Public Awareness Campaign to deliver credible, accurate, and timely information on COVID-19 prevention and management to communities across Africa. The campaign leveraged creative approaches — such as music, comedy, and dance—and deployed credible messengers such as teachers, community health workers, public transport workers, market traders, religious and other community leaders, and young people to encourage individuals to protect themselves, their families, and their communities by adopting Africa CDC recommended practices. Overall, the campaign reached over 130 million people.
Engage BCW Managing Partner, Desiree Gomes said, “We are excited and humbled to be part of this campaign that is changing lives across the continent. Most importantly, we are grateful that the Mastercard Foundation gave us the opportunity to support the execution of the campaign across the continent.”
“We believe that the recognition of this campaign by industry peers has been achieved through co-creation between the Mastercard Foundation, Engage BCW, our community, and media partners in delivering impact around COVID-19 preventive measures and vaccination messaging,” she added.
“The Mastercard Foundation public awareness campaign was designed to demonstrate the power of individuals and communities in Africa to address a global challenge. For the Foundation, it was critical for us to ensure that no community would be left behind in the global effort to safeguard lives and livelihoods. This campaign also highlighted the incredible innovation, resilience, and leadership of young people and communities,” said Julie Gichuru, Chief Public Affairs and Communications Officer at the Mastercard Foundation.
George Ouma, a Director at Green Sports Africa, one of the campaign Partners said, “The campaign yielded great impact as we interacted with communities through football to encourage adoption of the COVID-19 safety protocols and considering the COVID-19 vaccine as a preventive measure. For instance, in Ghana, we followed coach Michael into his community as he shared the campaign messaging with players and members of the community after receiving training. A resident, Kofi, who was just passing by the football pitch, spent a few minutes listening to coach Mike, after which he asked to be directed to a vaccination center where he received the COVID-19 vaccine.”
The Global SABRE Award’s recognition of the public awareness campaign adds to four other awards received in the past two years, including; second runner-up in the Platinum SABRE Awards for Best in Show category (among the top three in Africa), the 2022 SABRE Award for Eastern Africa, the 2022 SABRE Africa Winner of the Digital Campaign of the year, as well as the Public Relations Society of Kenya award for the COVID-19 Campaign of the Year 2021.
