01The Story
When the message is everywhere, how do you make people listen?
By 2021, young Ethiopians knew the COVID-19 safety measures well. Research for the campaign found that awareness was high but practice had slipped. Many saw the pandemic as a low priority next to other national concerns, and months of repetitive messaging had created a generalized fatigue.
As part of its COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program, the Mastercard Foundation set out to reach young people aged 14 to 35 with a public-awareness campaign that complemented government efforts, with a target of 3 million people in four months.
Resolution Studio built a strategy to meet the audience halfway. Instead of fear-based lines such as "COVID-19 kills", the campaign put hope and resilience at its centre, with a positive and sometimes humorous tone, while still asking people to move forward with caution.
Preventive behaviour became something to choose: an act of agency on the way back to normal life.
02The Idea
Onward with Caution.
በጥንቃቄ ወደፊት
The identity spoke in the language of the street. Clear, directional layouts took their cue from road signage. Everyday Ethiopian scenes, a bicycle, a three-wheeled taxi, a donkey, showed how much space to keep. Traditional cloth patterns carried a sense of identity, and #ItsUpToUs tied every channel together.
- Turquoise
- Red
- Orange
- White
Each illustration measures distance with something everyone knows.
The length of a bicycle. The length of a bajaj. Two metres, in everyday terms.
03The Coffee Connection
The message, served with coffee.
Many young Ethiopians stop at a street coffee stall on the way to work, after lunch or during a break. The campaign met them there. With two community-based organizations, Live Addis and Endurance Youth Association, Resolution Studio identified, recruited and trained women who run coffee stalls.
Each received a short business course and a workshop on COVID-19 and its prevention, supported by doctors and nurses, then face masks, T-shirts and banners that made their stalls part of the campaign.
1,014women coffee vendors trained in business skills and COVID-19 protection.
964,166customer interactions reported as directly reached at the coffee stalls.
04Beyond the Street
On air, on screen, in people's hands.
A weekly radio show shared stories of people who overcame the pandemic's challenges, entrepreneurs who kept going, guest speakers from comedy and music, and easy advice from medical professionals, with music and listener questions.
Television carried the same spirit: one-minute spots with lessons from entrepreneurs the Foundation supported during the hardest months. An original one-minute jingle tied radio and television together.
24radio episodes
- 16 on Ahadu Radio FM 94.3
- 8 on Fana
- 20 minutes each
10TV spots
- EBC and Fana TV
- One minute each
1original jingle
- One minute, on radio and TV
Stills from the TV spots
05From Awareness to Action
A booth by the gate of the Christmas bazaar.
The campaign closed at Ethiopia's largest events venue, the Addis Ababa exhibition centre, during its annual Christmas bazaar, from 27 December 2021 to 7 January 2022.
An Onward with Caution booth stood beside the main gate, where every visitor passed. Medical professionals and government health workers shared key messages over loudspeakers, the jingle played, and those who chose to were vaccinated on the spot.
- Days at the bazaar
- 10
- People vaccinated at the booth
- 23
- Flyers handed out
- 85,023
06The Reach
What the campaign delivered.
- 1,014coffee vendors trained
- 24radio episodes broadcast
- 10TV spots on two national stations
- 94,400promotional materials produced and distributed
38.9 millionestimated total reach, reported in the 2021 closeout report
How this was estimated: radio and television reach were calculated from the population and demographics of the broadcast areas, because the media houses did not provide audience measurement. Indirect reach assumes each vendor shares the message with three family members and each bazaar visitor with three more people. It is a reported estimate, not independently verified unique reach.
07The Next Chapter · 2023
From prevention to vaccine confidence.
In 2023 the Mastercard Foundation continued with a COVID-19 vaccine uptake campaign, implemented by the Consortium of Self-Help Group Approach Promoters (CoSAP). It trained young female leaders as Health Champions to build trust in the vaccine among people aged 16 to 29.
The campaign carried a new line: በክትባት እናሸንፍ! Let's win with the vaccine.
- Health Champions
- 1,490
- Districts in nine regions
- 45
- Community members mobilized
- 21,201
Figures from CoSAP's 2023 closeout report.
08Closing
Communication works differently when communities become part of it
Onward with Caution reached people where they already were: at a coffee stall, on the radio, in front of the evening news, at the gate of a holiday bazaar. The women who ran the stalls became the campaign's most trusted voices, and their stories carried it further than any slogan could.
- Client
- Mastercard Foundation
- Campaign
- Onward with Caution · #ItsUpToUs · 2021
- Services
- Strategy Development · Strategy Implementation · Content Production · Visual Identity Design
- Audience
- Young people aged 14 to 35, Ethiopia
Partners
Co-created with the Mastercard Foundation and Engage BCW. Community outreach with Live Addis and Endurance Youth Association; broadcast with Ahadu Radio, Fana Broadcasting Corporate and the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation; government health offices and medical practitioners at the core of the campaign.