Back to Work Safely: How AIHA and CS-Effect partnered for an integrated campaign

The Challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic caused businesses to shut down. As businesses began to reopen, confusing messages on personal protective equipment (PPE), and the lack of clear direction and guidance provided at the national level, to protect worker health and safety made it challenging to get the support and clearance necessary to bring workers — and customers — back into businesses. AIHA, a professional association for occupational and environmental health and safety science professionals committed to preserving and ensuring health and safety in the workplace and community, responded with the Back to Work Safely campaign. Its aim was to reach employers across all industries and provide guidelines and resources that would allow them to re-open their businesses safely for their employees and their customers.

The Action

At the onset of the campaign, CS-Effect created a multi-faceted communications plan to ensure each audience base would be engaged. Several strategies were developed to reach those audiences, including media relations, social media engagement, targeted industry outreach and government-based outreach.

Microsite

CS-Effect launched a new microsite for this campaign, providing direct accessibility to AIHA online resources for our audiences. The materials included recommendations on ventilation, personal hygiene, physical distancing and enhanced cleaning and were developed by a task force of experienced AIHA members. All traffic in the promotions of the campaign was directed to this website.

Media Relations

CS-Effect developed news releases, fact sheets, expert alerts, and FAQs that included definitions of PPE, referenced guidelines, clarified misinformation on PPE, ventilation and disinfection. We created pitch letters and directly contacted journalists via phone, email and social media, speaking with more than 75 journalists for interviews and expert connections across the country.

Social Media

A social media profile was created for Twitter (@Back2WorkSafely). While the following is growing organically, this profile complemented our primary efforts of reaching our audiences through media, and third party supporters.

Government and National Association Outreach

CS-Effect reached out to governors and chambers of commerce across the country, including the US Chamber of Commerce, to include the AIHA guidelines on their website. We also drafted a position statement to the Governors to encourage their offices to review the AIHA guidance documents as they considered lifting shelter-in-place orders and re-opening businesses.

Digital Assets

Several other digital assets including white papers, a video, printable posters, webinars and podcasts were created specifically for this campaign, including: