Overcoming vaccine hesitancy to save lives.​

How we helped the Cabinet Office and the WHO fight misinformation during the pandemic.​

In early 2021, the Cabinet Office and the World Health Organisation were battling vaccine hesitancy—the result of misinformation and fears about the speed with which the covid vaccines were created and approved. They needed help creating a communications strategy that would convince people to protect themselves and stop the spread of the virus.​

We signed up for the mission.​

The fightback against the pandemic

Vaccine hesitancy has been an issue since vaccines have existed, and the speed with which the Covid vaccines were created and approved were causes of concern, alongside significant amounts of misinformation about Covid and the vaccines across news and social media channels around the world.

UK Government leading the way

Based on the UK’s success in the speed of the vaccination roll-out and as host of the G7 World Leaders in June, the UK Government wanted to show global leadership in helping the world get vaccinated. The UK Government brought together groups from technology, media and academia and set the challenge of building tools in partnership with the WHO to roll-out vaccines most effectively. Transform was asked to lead and co-ordinate the project and create the communications strategy and toolkit.

Finding the undecided

Using population data, survey responses, and ​keyword analysis from news reports and social media, we segmented the population into four groups: Already Vaccinated; Vaccine Acceptors; Vaccine Rejectors and the Undecided.​

Tracking reach and sentiment​

We analysed three key categories of data: overall vaccination progress, geodemographic survey data ​on vaccination probability, and vaccine sentiment on social media.

Global Dashboard and insights

A database was built with data feeds covering the key areas:

• Population data including socio-demographic data
• Vaccination progress
• Survey data on likelihood to have the vaccine split geo-demographically
• All News media reports at a region, country and global level with volume and sentiment analysis to highlight positive / neutral / negative coverage with keywords to understand the narrative
• Social media mentions and conversations with volume, sentiment and keywords analysis

Creating a compelling toolkit to build trust​

We created a communications strategy to drive confidence, minimise the effect of misinformation and ultimately increase vaccine uptake globally.