Adopt global campaign to combat Ebola — Magnet
World leaders have been called upon to adopt a ‘critical extra-emergency’ global campaign to combat the deadly Ebola virus disease (EVD).
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In a statement issued by advertising consultancy firm, Magnet Consultancy ahead of the special emergency Heads of State Summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Accra, the company called on world leaders to review the current approach to combating the deadly disease, where messages are not well-coordinated, and rather adopt a more innovative and holistic campaign.
“To embark on a successful Ebola campaign, we need professionally developed and catchy campaign message(s). Though the Ebola virus is neither a product nor a person, any campaign associated with it must be well thought-out and expertly executed,” the statement said.
Such a campaign, Magnet noted, should aim at “building broken bridges, connecting the disjointed parts, and filling in the missing gaps” that have characterised the current campaign in which the whole of West Africa is described as an Ebola zone. “That is negating the various efforts being made in the fight against the disease,” the statement pointed out.
Public education concepts on the disease must provide a pivotal solution by professionally developing a global multi-pronged campaign message. For instance, Ebola could be branded as a personified element - an enemy - that must be attacked and crushed within a specific period.
According to the company, it has developed what it described as a strategy to deal with the abstraction of realism and myth about the disease, the lack of visual product identification, and relativity, lack of a global campaign message for a harmonious and coherent global crusade, and the lack of symbolic representation for visualisation of Ebola.
If this strategy is adopted, the company said, target communities could have a visual link and psycho relation with Ebola as a real enemy that must be attacked from all angles.
The campaign, it stated, could provide the tool for a successful generic and segmented campaign to crush Ebola within a short period.
