METRO MANILA, Philippines – Two COVID-19 related communication campaigns led by integrated marketing and communications firm Evident were recognized at this year’s Stevie Awards for Women in Business.
The firm received a Gold Stevie Award for “Communications or PR Campaign of the Year – COVID-19 Related Information” for a project it carried out with several government agencies advocating the adoption of digital financial services as a contactless alternative to in-person transactions during the pandemic.
The firm also bagged a Bronze Stevie Award for “Best Use of Social Media – COVID-19 Related Information” for a campaign that worked to position Filipino families as a key component of a national prevention strategy for COVID-19 by highlighting practical steps for prevention and mitigation that can be strengthened at home.
The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees, and the companies they run– worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the world’s premier business awards.
The firm was previously lauded for the STEMPower Our Girls campaign that empowered young Filipino women to realize a future in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). In 2019, it brought home a Gold Stevie Award for Women in Business in the category PR Campaign of the Year in Public Service.
“At Evident we believe that effective communications is a critical component in delivering success for public sector programs – from public health to economic recovery. We are grateful for the opportunity to share our strategic and creative skills to help the Philippines in the fight against COVID-19. To be recognized for our contributions in this critical time is especially meaningful,” said Cecile Dominguez-Yujuico, CEO and Founder of Evident.
“We celebrate awards that recognize the contributions of women in business because they help encourage collaboration and inspire innovative approaches to some of the most pressing challenges of today. This is especially true in the area of public health, where women often play an overlooked, but pivotal role in determining the health and safety of the community.” she added.
Using digital financial platforms to enable and protect the public from COVID-19 created economic challenges
Evident executed the Safe at Home with E-Payments Campaign for the Central Bank of the Philippines and United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) through its E- PESO Project, in a bid to improve public financial literacy and communicate the ease, convenience, and safety of digital financial services or e-payments during the pandemic.
To this end, the firm developed content on social media for PisoLit, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s official financial literacy platform on Facebook. It also communicated important data privacy and security information for first-time adopters. The firm’s sustained outreach to other banking and financial institutions further amplified the message.
In addition, Evident played a key role in building awareness for ReliefAgad, the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) app that digitized the collection of beneficiary data and distribution of financial assistance to Social Amelioration Program (SAP) recipients. The service enabled beneficiaries to receive government relief through e-wallets, sparing recipients from having to queue and risking infection in crowded places.
Through its efforts, the firm helped DSWD educate and signup over 4.3 million registrants for ReliefAgad.
Finally, Evident created content for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)’s official Facebook pages and organized webinars on how to file and pay taxes electronically. These efforts helped to sustain the Philippine economy during the health crisis.
Strengthening families as the first line of defense against COVID-19
Evident’s campaign to position Filipino families as the first line of defense against COVID-19, “COVID Alis sa Pamilyang Wais” (or “Family Smarts Keep COVID Away”) worked to highlight the importance of the family’s solidarity and collective action to beat COVID-19.
The campaign was informed by insights on the public's behavior related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Evident developed strategies and activations designed to modify these perceptions and behaviors and enable Philippine families to more effectively engage the tangible economic and public health challenges of the COVID-19 crisis.
On the basis of these strategies, the firm developed regular social media content to communicate practical measures that can be taken at at home, in the workplace, and in the course of daily activities to better prevent the spread of the virus for Healthy Pilipinas, the Department of Health’s official social and behavior change communication platform. The content was positioned as friendly, relatable, memorable and actionable, to enable families to feel empowered to take action to prevent the spread of the virus.
Evident’s campaign for Healthy Pilipinas was also shared as a best practice in the USAID- supported Breakthrough ACTION network of public health communicators working on COVID- 19 in 21 countries globally.
