A “Grandparent-Approved” PSA
By Jacqueline Bond, Genelle Quarles Adrien, February 19, 2016
-->Shingles strikes nearly one in three adults in the US, and roughly half of them are age 60 and older. Our partners at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) are working to change that.
NFID wanted to spread the word online about the safe and effective shingles vaccine to folks 60 years and older. This audience is constantly bombarded with messages about health—not to mention cat and baby memes—so it would take more than a news story or fact sheet to get them to prioritize learning about a painful disease like shingles.
NFID recognized that they had to create something that would grab our grandmothers’ attention, especially because they were competing with things like this:
We worked with NFID to create a “grandparent-approved” shingles PSA. Through the story of a grandmother and her sweet grandson, it shows how this painful and potentially long-lasting disease can interfere with your life–and how it can easily be prevented with the one-time shingles vaccine. Using a story rather than a talking head, for example, allows the audience to see themselves reflected in the PSA, which increases the likelihood that they’ll watch, engage, and act.
We know our grandmothers approve:
We hope others do, too.
Check out the PSA below, and visit nfid.org/shingles to learn more.
Project team: Elizabeth Wenk, Marianna Sachse, Genelle Quarles, Jacqueline Bond
