• by Tanya Gazdik , April 7, 2020

The Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organizations have beefed up marketing to help educate and inform about COVID-19.

The 60-second spot from the CDC enlists First Lady Melania Trump with a spot focused on how families can stay healthy, instructing children when and how they should be washing their hands. 

“Children should wash their hands after coming in from outside, before eating, after coughing, sneezing and blowing their little noses,” she says.  

The spot has aired 63 times as of Tuesday afternoon, including on Ride TV, a 24-hour cable television network dedicated to equestrian sports.

Meanwhile, WHO is launching a campaign geared to a Gen-Z audience with virtual influencer Knox Frost, who was created through CGI and has over one million followers on Instagram.

The goal of the pro bono campaign is to tell Gen Z-ers to stay home, stay healthy and donate to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Frost's WHO-related post already has more than 32,000 "likes" on Instagram. 

Gen Z and millennials need to take this message to heart, says Ryan Detert, chief executive officer of Influential, which created the campaign.

“In the era of social distancing, virtual influencers are quickly emerging as an innovative new part of the influencer landscape,” Detert says.

In late March, influencer marketing service Takumi developed two pro-bono influencer campaigns about the COVID-19 outbreak that are running on Instagram and TikTok. 

One of the initiatives is a campaign for WHO called #safehands, with information on how to properly wash hands and to promote positive behaviors to help slow the spread.

The second is #TheMindfulMovement, a Takumi-owned initiative to promote mental health and mindfulness amid the anxiety surrounding this pandemic.