At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Snow understood that the agency has a unique responsibility to apply its expertise in conveying health messages to diverse audiences. Among Snow’s stakeholders are numerous people living with severe health conditions and compromised immune systems, as well as companies and organizations concerned with the well-being of these vulnerable populations.
Therefore, the goal was to urge the patients themselves to comply with social distancing, safety, and hygiene measures, as well as sensitizing those who may not feel particularly at risk of COVID-19 to understand the importance of those measures for the elderly and immunocompromised among their loved ones.
The overall strategic premise was: Let's turn a threat into an opportunity. We can't change the fact that the pandemic will cause major upheaval to Snow's business, one way or another. But we can claim leadership and deal with the situation proactively. While COVID-19 is a major threat to all businesses, ours included, an agile reaction can help to turn it into an opportunity as well.
To do that, we needed to capitalize on the investments we've made in digital infrastructure and skills. We needed to have the confidence to move fast before we had all the answers. We needed this project to be prioritized from the very top down.
What we found was that in times where everything is up in the air and uncertain, displaying leadership and confidence goes a very long way. You have to show a path forward and demonstrate a stable relationship by letting people know you still care about them. You don't discard those relationships just because you can't currently do business with them.
One of the greatest needs for patients during this global pandemic is for everyone else to put themselves in the patients’ place—to be patient by empathizing with patients. Snow utilized the word play between “patient” (the noun) and “patient” (the adjective) through messages delivered by real patients to create empathy for patients. In addition, Snow supported these patient-delivered messages through a multi-channel social campaign that leveraged Facebook Live interviews with real patients, Facebook and Instagram stories, and micro-targeted boosted posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Another channel we used to foster our relationship was to use our Relationship Managers and Health Educators to reach out and check in on the well-being of all Patient Ambassadors. We also conducted several rounds of COVID-related surveys, to check the pulse on the various patient populations we’re in contact with.
