APNA HEALTH
South Asian Community's
Health & Wellbeing
A multilingual integrated campaign
Challenge
COVID-19 has impacted each and everyone in one way or another. With the rise of the second wave, one of the most impacted groups in Ontario, Canada, was the South Asian Community living in Peel Region. A large majority in this community are new immigrants and face language barriers. COVID-19 information from the government was in English and was not fully comprehended at the community level. There was a strong stigma as well as non-scientific myths built around the virus, and cases were not being reported due to a fear of losing livelihood or simply a lack of guidance. There was an unmet need with this community in terms of awareness and knowledge, support, and guidance in a language they could clearly understand.
Solution
BTI helped launch a new entity ‘Apna Health’, an organization committed to the South Asian community’s health and wellness. The name, logo and supporting imagery, was developed ensuring that our target audience could connect and relate to it. A multilingual integrated master campaign was launched targeting the South Asian community in Peel Region. The campaign was intended to grab the audience’s attention to the messages, delivered in their language, with a strong visual of a person that they could identify with. Campaign elements included newspaper ads, TV ads, radio ads and interviews, OOH, Google and social media ads, email campaign, and postcards; all driving the audience to a robust website, apnahealth.org, which was loaded with facts, information and guidance related to COVID-19 in multiple languages; English, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, and Urdu.
An extension to the campaign was launched after 3 months of the master campaign, targeting the youth in this community. This campaign encouraged young members to become health ambassadors of their own families and share useful information and guidance with their families by using Apna Health resources.
Result
Within 3 months of the master campaign launch, the Apna Health website had more than 30K visitors. Digital platforms (Google display and SEM + Social Media) delivered more than 5.4 million impressions. OOH sites (Billboards + Bus Shelters) in Mississauga and Brampton provided approx. 500,000 daily average circulation for 4 weeks. The website is being constantly updated with new content in English as well as South Asian languages. The platform provided the South Asian Community an easily accessible resource and support in their languages during the pandemic.