Immunisation Advisory Centre encourages Kiwis to ‘Treasure our Whānau’ in Flu work via RUN

Māori-owned, independent creative agency RUN, has launched the national influenza immunization campaign, running over the next 8 weeks across TV, digital, social, print and press.

RUN won the pitch last year to develop a new brand identity and campaign with the Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC), who hold the Ministry of Health (MOH) contract to plan and implement the national influenza promotional campaign and programme.

Since then they’ve been through a community consultation process with various groups, with the support of Hāpai te Hauora, Asian Family Services and healthcare professionals. Insights from this led to the campaign strategy of everyone treating their whānau like the taonga (treasure) they are in a reciprocal way.

The campaign features real people, painted in a classic portraiture style, to visually articulate that they are a taonga to their whānau, merged with modern design to capture the audience.

Each portrait is being gifted to the person painted, for them and their whānau to keep as a taonga, to display proudly in their home.

Says Raymond McKay, CD at RUN: “With this campaign we needed to draw upon all of our cultural experience within the agency to create something meaningful, that really focused on real people. Our collaboration and approach needed to be less agency and more tīkanga, which we relish.”

Says Barbara McArdle, national influenza coordinator at IMAC: “We gave RUN a challenging brief, and we’re really happy with the outcome. They have been open minded, flexible and able to adapt rapidly to changes, while continuing to provide the necessary design and communication we needed for this important national campaign.”

Māori kaumātua aged 65+ are the primary audience for this years’ campaign, followed by the older Asian community, with the capability to easily adapt it for different audiences in future years.

Client: Barbara McArdle, Theo Brandt – Immunisation Advisory Centre
Agency: RUN
Creative Director: Raymond Otene McKay and Laura Cibilich
Designers: Laura Cibilich, Maria Philp, Russell Hooton-Fox
Illustrator: Joseph Qiu
Director/DOP: Vinnie Carter
Cultural Advisors: Rangi McLean, Hāpai Te Hauora, Asian Family Services, Ariana Stone