Jabs Army
The Sun
Within three weeks it had smashed its target, and now has over 66,000 volunteers with volunteers having donated over a million hours helping in over 900 vaccination centres. A cross party campaign, it has been praised by the NHS, PM Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, as well as being backed by over 50 of Britain’s biggest firms including BT, Morrisons, British Airways, PaddyPower, and Sky TV.
The crucial Steward Volunteer roles that The Sun recruited form a key part of the NHS Covid-19 vaccination team - their role includes guiding people on site and helping the vaccination process run safely and efficiently, ensuring social distancing and identifying people who need additional support.
A new narrative of vaccine hesitancy was emerging in parts of society so the campaign also set out to correct mistruths, debunk myths and encourage the country to get jabbed.
The campaign had a clear call to action and mark of success when it smashed the target weeks in. Following the campaign’s implementation, internal analysis of The Sun’s reader panel showed that 83% of readers wanted to get vaccinated, a significant rise on pre-campaign figures in November: with the belief that the vaccines will be safe and effective up 20 percentage points. In the same survey, an impressive 71% of Sun readers were aware of the campaign, and among those that were, readers were significantly more willing to be vaccinated and more confident about the vaccines.
The Sun has published nearly 300 print pieces, over 300 Sun online pieces and 13 Sun front pages on Jabs Army which has helped make it the number one Sun campaign for social reach & engagement. A further 10 external broadcast interviews and more than 80 pieces of external broadcast coverage has given the campaign a total external reach of 29 million and helped widen the campaign outside Sun channels.