Department of Health: COVID-19 Awareness and National Vaccine Rollout campaigns.

Challenge

The Federal Department of Health (DOH) had been running a communications campaign that targeted mainstream, English-speaking audiences, but these were failing to reach CALD audiences. Early attempts to reach CALD audiences failed to gain traction due to a knowledge gap around cultural and linguistic barriers, media consumption habits and the different ways in which communities access and disseminate information. DOH engaged LOTE to extend the reach and amplify the message of the COVID-19 health campaign, delivering the national multicultural public relations programme for COVID-19 awareness and the vaccine rollout, reaching community groups across 33 languages. Importantly, the project had to focus on community behaviour change required to be 'COVIDSafe' moving forward.

Solution

A strategy was designed to foster greater dialogue with communities and support them to take action. This was key to limiting community transmission of COVID-19 and mitigating its impacts on the economy and public health beyond the pandemic itself. Supporting community-based solutions is particularly important in communities that do not have easy access to information in the national language and may not engage with mainstream digital and televised news outlets.

In developing a solution, LOTE used a combination of rapid desk review and mapping exercises to identify priority language groups and communities, grassroots PR, EDM and social media "stakeholder packs" that could be distributed among communities, CALD community ambassador engagement initiatives to ensure community buy-in, and production of in-language material including videos, social media assets and factsheets.

Impact

Both the client and the communities were extremely impressed with the results that LOTE delivered to tight deadlines, engaging hard-to-reach communities with critical, and potentially life-saving, public health messaging. LOTE reached 9 million Australians on a monthly basis.

Demonstrates experience in:

• Research and strategy development (Co-Design Community Workshops and

Focus Groups)

• Grassroots PR engagement

• Production of large-scale in-language material (e.g. 231 animated

videos in 33 languages)

• Bespoke online engagement portal "Community Pulse"