#TeamSikhaba: A National Campaign To Reignite Sa’s Fighting Spirit Against Covid-19
In the throes of a global pandemic, how do you encourage people to protect themselves and their communities in light of growing misinformation and fatigue? Sikhaba iCovid-19, a national radio show in partnership with the Department of Health and SABC Radio, collaborated with medical experts, community leaders, and influencers to remind South Africans: ‘this is not the time to give up’. In just 3 days, we activated thousands of voices, reached over 16 million people and trended nationally on Twitter.
Nothing brings South Africans together like sports
In July 2020, just as South Africa was emerging out of its first peak of Covid-19 infections, we were tasked with creating a social campaign to rally the nation, and bring a fresh perspective on the familiar Covid-19 messaging. Our idea: Beating Covid-19 is a team sport.
Sikhaba means “we kick” and that’s what we were asking people to do: share ways to kick Covid-19 out of our lives and communities, together. Harnessing the unifying power of sports fandoms, and the love of soccer in particular, our idea was to get South African soccer players to share their tips and encourage fans to join #TeamSikhaba.
We had limited time and budget to land this crucial message, so we decided to focus our energies on a single day, July 30th, for the Derby of the Year: SA vs Covid-19.
Accessibility, relatability and inclusion were key components of this campaign. If we were to get South Africans to work together to help themselves and others through the pandemic, our stakeholders, content and delivery had to harness people’s passion for soccer, highlight the joint struggle COVID-19 presented, and be truly representative of the nation’s diversity. One of the biggest challenges was translating content into all of South Africa’s 11 official languages.
Attack and Defence
We defined two main ways people could better equip themselves in the fight against the virus: Attack and Defence. Defence involves taking care of yourself - social distancing, hand-washing, the proper use of masks and how to get help if you’re down. Attack is about taking care of others - sharing your status, staying home if you have any symptoms, tackling stigma, and learning how to safely help those in need.
We worked with experts to create shareable content including text posts in all the official languages, memes, graphicsandimages. These posts were to be sent directly to soccer players, fans, and broadcasters with a request that they add their voice to the activation.
Bringing the Team Together
The first challenge we faced was closed doors. Soccer players are in high demand, and we didn’t have budget to pay for their involvement. Our solution was to get in touch with the South African Football Association directly, and offer the platform for their Under-21 Women’s Team - the future of SA football.
Our plan aligned with SAFA’s vision, and they came on-board. This was a breakthrough partnership for the campaign. Videos were created with Kananelo Taiwe, Jessica Wade, and Shakira O’Malley
And soon they were joined by Bafana Bafana stars Kermit Erasmus and Thamsanqa Mkhize. We had a squad, and we were on our way!
#TeamSikhaba gets a Coach
Anyone who knows anything about South African soccer knows about legendary broadcaster Robert Marawa. Respected, insightful and with a following of over 1m people on Twitter and Facebook, he was the ideal coach for #TeamSikhaba. We contacted him to outline the Sikhaba iCovid-19 concept and explain the immense value his voice would add to the cause. He agreed to give “a locker-room talk” - half-time pep talk for a national team that’s 1-0 down to Covid-19 and needing to make a comeback. He would shoot a video for the campaign and post it mid-morning, just as the conversation was spreading into public awareness.
Activating the Fans
Using our sharepack full of official Sikhaba content - text posts in all the official languages, memes, graphics and images - an incredibly diverse group of people including sports stars, medical experts, academics, researchers, civil society leaders, and citizens joined us on social media using the hashtag #TeamSikhaba.
Our ask was clear: celebrate, leverage and steer. Celebrate the work of other individuals and organisations in your sector, and encourage them to join #TeamSikhaba. Leverage your organisational and personal social platforms to amplify strategies we can use to beat COVID-19. Steer the conversation towards beating COVID-19 as a team sport in your sector by highlighting your COVID-related efforts.
When Marawa’s video dropped, comments flooded in as more and more people became aware of what #TeamSikhaba was and who was supporting it. Initially, Marawa planned on just releasing the video, but seeing the massive response it garnered, he continued posting and responding to comments throughout the campaign. Partnering with a soccer legend of Marawa’s calibre added massive hype to #TeamSikhaba and helped get the hashtag trending.
Results
Through channeling people's passion for soccer and tapping into existing conversations, Sikhaba i-Covid19 and Treeshake were able to bring people together.
Over the course of the 3 days, 15.4 million people were reached on Twitter, 740,000 people on Facebook, with more than 45,000 people having interacted with the content across all platforms and 3,000 people having joined us in creating original posts in support of the campaign.
A major highlight was trending on Twitter nationally. This was especially exciting as Sikhaba was a brand new account with less than 10 followers at the start of the campaign.
The community spirit of the #TeamSikhaba was phenomenal. In just 3 days, thousands of people rallied together to fight COVID-19 in solidarity with one another. With the rapid growth of this community and the key voices that pulled through, we helped people feel less alone and scared. Widows, celebrities with COVID-19 and frontline workers reminded people that we are all in this together — the virus does not discriminate and neither should we. Battling an overall sense of fatigue around COVID-19 communications, the community came out stronger - inspired, hopeful and with renewed energy.
