Morreale Communications - COVID-19-related Campaign of the Year

Company: Morreale Communications - Chicago
Company Division/Group:Morreale Communications
Company Description: Morreale Communications is an award-winning, WBE/WBENC certified strategic communications agency. Founded in 2006, Morreale has an all-female leadership team and a 90% female and minority workforce. Our specialty areas include strategic message development, stakeholder engagement, branding and creative strategy, digital & social communications, diversity & inclusion, policy and media relations.
Nomination Category: COVID-19 Response Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - COVID-19-related Information

Nomination Title: Connecting Communities to Covid Resources - Pandemic Public Health Navigator Program

Morreale Communications has built a reputation for delivering advocacy, public education and media strategies that drive awareness,encourage engagement and inspire action from the public.When the Illinois Public Health Association (IPHA) received a grant from the Illinois Department of Public​ to develop an action plan to mitigate the spread of misinformation and encourage vaccine participation, they contracted Morreale Communications to build an outreach strategy, develop messaging and content, and ultimately inform the public about resources available to them.

Morreale conducted extensive survey research with residents and nonprofits throughout the statethatshowed 1 in 5 Illinoisans were unwilling to receive the COVID vaccine and could not determine the difference between accurate virus information and misinformation.Empowered with this data,IPHA and Morreale launched the Pandemic Health Navigator Programtoinform residents on the facts regarding the virus, conduct contact tracing, connect our most vulnerable populations with needed resources and help individualsmake a planto get vaccinated.

Morreale worked with IPHA to develop a partnership and funding relationship with more than 85 community-based organizations and federally qualified health centers throughout the state.Through this effort, partnering organizations have hired hundreds of local community health workers and fulfilled more than10,000resource requests for critical supplies such as food, medicine, and financial support for monthly expenses like rent and utilities. Morreale and IPHA have equipped community health workers with training via a newly developed digital learning management system as well as tools and technology like Salesforce and Slack to track their work and remain connected to one another.

Morreale continues to support the program with a comprehensive integrated marketing campaign including a custom website (HelpGuideThrive.org), an e-newsletter, social media, paid electronic and outdoor board advertising, earned media and a wide variety of educational materials to inform the public on the facts and guidelines regarding COVID-19. These efforts have yielded more than 265 million earned media and 10 million paid impressions that are driving brand awareness that increases access to the program and resources available to residentsthroughoutthe state.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials:

As documented in the supporting materials attachment, Morreale outlines multi-channel integrated marketing campaign helped spread the educational information and resources. with content pushed through paid, owned and earned channels

Technology was implemented to arm the Community Health Workers—from CRM, collaborationand training tools. Educational materials were printed and customized to the unique needs of different communities.

As a result of this integrated andmutli-faceted strategy, the Pandemic Health Navigator Program hita number ofachievements in the battle against COVID-19.

-More than 85 community based organizations and federally qualified health centers partnering in the program
-More than 500 Community Health Workers hired and trained
-More than 265 million media impressions since the start of the program
-More than 10 million paid advertising impressions
-Traffic to the HelpGuideThrive.org website has continued to increase 25% since the start of the program
-Most importantly- More than 10,000 residents have been provided resources across the state of Illinois

Thanks to the IPHA and the Pandemic Health Navigator Program, coalitions and partnerships were built and community health in Illinois is stronger than ever before.Because of strong public relations and demonstrated success, there is a renewed emphasis on public health infrastructure and the critical role this network will play in healthy communities for years to come.