Vaccination offensive against omicron wave: FOCUS Online and antoni launch digital Infopoint

by Johanna Schallehn
FOCUS Online and the other brands of digital publisher BurdaForward are supporting the second phase of the German industry's vaccination appeal as media partners. The social media campaign was initiated in early December by a team around the advertising agency antoni. More than 2,000 companies took part in the campaign under the hashtag #zusammengegencorona and reworded their slogan into an appeal for vaccination.
Now, well-founded information - also against the background of the rapidly spreading Omikron virus variant - is to increase people's willingness to be vaccinated.
"We want to use the great attention that our campaign has generated to provide more in-depth and up-to-date information. We have found a competent partner for this in FOCUS Online," says Sven Dörrenbächer from antoni.
Corona poses enormous challenges for all of us - especially now that Omicron is facing a population that is largely exhausted. We want to fulfill our social responsibility and continue to help collectively overcome this historic crisis by providing reliable and constructive information.“
FOCUS Online and the other BurdaForward brands (including CHIP, Bunte.de, TV Spielfilm) bundle information in a joint vaccination portal at focus.de/zusammengegencorona. It contains information about vaccines, their effects and side effects. The importance of immunizing our society with vaccines to contain the Corona virus is also addressed. Numerous editorial contents and expert contributions by guest authors, such as virologist Alexander Kekulé, provide a comprehensive and constantly updated overview.
"Omicron is racing. For all we know, despite increased vaccine breakthroughs, the broadest possible immunization through the vaccine is the only way to get through this pandemic as safely as possible. Based on this conviction, we support the initiative," says Florian Festl, Editor-in-Chief of FOCUS Online. In addition to the vaccination portal, the BurdaForward portals provide vaccination information in a bundled form that participating companies can pass on to their employees.
Supporters of the vaccination appeal include companies and brands from numerous industries - from adidas and Nivea to Aldi, Lufthansa and several clubs in the German Soccer League. But institutions such as the German Red Cross, Kindernothilfe, the German Cancer Aid Foundation and Aktion Mensch are also getting involved. Vaccination claims such as "Sänk ju for impfen" (Deutsche Bahn), "Impf your way" (Europcar) or "Impfen can do" (O2) spontaneously emerged.
The initiative to support #ZusammenGegenCorona arose spontaneously. Concerned about the fourth wave of the pandemic and its social, societal and economic impact, a group of people from the marketing industry got together and launched the campaign, which is based on an idea from the advertising agency antoni. The campaign team includes Sven Dörrenbächer and Tonio Kröger from antoni, Christine Wolburg, Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe BVG, Natanael Sijanta from Mercedes-Benz, Oliver Klein from marketing consultancy cherrypicker, Oliver Schrott from PR agency OSK and Björn Simon from Vodafone.