Excellence in Media Relations

Summary of work

AstraZeneca’s childhood flu public awareness campaign ‘Share Good Times Not Flu’ was launched to support the Government’s ambition to vaccinate 70% of eligible children against the virus.

Despite flu having the potential to cause respiratory complications and even hospitalisation for children, and children being more likely than adults to spread flu, public inertia exists around the importance of childhood flu vaccination. Polling conducted in September 2021 by Savanta ComRes revealed that only 64% of parents intended to vaccinate their children – missing the Government’s 70% target.

Our objective was to secure national media coverage of the importance of childhood flu vaccination, to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.

We secured support from prominent media medics with a combined following of 452.4k on social media. Dr Ranj Singh, Dr Philippa Kaye, Dr Nighat Arif, Dr Punam Krishan and Dr Stephanie Jen Chyi Ooi featured in and shared campaign content and acted as media spokespeople.

We reached an audience of more than 3 million via 21 pieces of print and broadcast coverage, including ITV Meridian, BBC news and radio, KMFM, and regional print and broadcast publications. Media interest generated during the campaign led to several national follow-up stories on childhood flu vaccination.

Judges' comments

The judges felt that this challenging topic was well attempted as an incredibly relevant and timely area to broach with accessible language used.  They also thought the strategy and implementation were very comprehensive, thoughtful, covered all the different bases and were well executed. The outcomes were good too and they achieved great coverage, along with some strong partnerships.