Unimed: THE FLU IS FOLLOWING YOU

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Social Media Marketing

Advertiser: UNIMED

Product/Service: FLU VACCINE CAMPAIGN

Agency: ESCALA COMUNICACAO E MARKETING

Date of First Appearance: Apr 23 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: ESCALA COMUNICACAO E MARKETING, Porto Alegre, BRAZIL

Creative Director: Eduardo Axelrud (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Creative Director: Régis Montagna (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Art Director: Fabrício Pretto (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Copywriter: Luciana Vieira (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Media Executive: Nicolas Motta (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Account Executive: Priscila Manjabosco (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Account Executive: Carolina Lipinski (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Account Manager: Claudia Valim (Escala Comunicação e Marketing)

Digital PR: Nathalia Grun

Media placement: Twitter Profile - Twitter - 23.04.2009



Results and Effectiveness

This action enjoyed widespread attention on blogs and many social networks.

Moreover, the number of vaccinations tripled when compared to the year before, and many more people were protected against the flu virus.



Creative Execution

We created a fake user called “a_gripe” (the flu). All of a sudden, “the flu” did on twitter what it does in real life: it began to follow people. “a_gripe is following you on Twitter”. Several users enjoyed and appreciated the action due to its good humor and creativity.

Our fake user was so successful that within a few hours people began to follow “the flu”.

This huge audience provided Unimed with an opportunity to post several useful warnings and data about the flu.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea



2009 will be remembered as the year in which the whole world faced the problems that the H1N1 flu brought to millions of people. In Brazil, this reality was no different.

As winter approached and a strong flu outbreak took place in the Brazilian state in which it operates, Unimed, a healthcare cooperative organisation, needed to alert people about how important vaccination against the flu was.

Elderly citizens and children’s parents were alerted exhaustively by the media. However, the big problem was how to alert youths, as just 34% of them read newspapers.

To address this age group in an efficient way, we used one of the social networks that showed the most growth in Brazil in 2009: Twitter. Currently, Brazil is ranked 2nd in the world in terms of registered users, and from 2008 to 2009 there was a 900% increase in the number of users.