To encourage further public support for its effort to eradicate polio, Rotary International welcomed a select group of celebrities and other major public figures into a public awareness campaign called “This Close.” The campaign was a unique way to promote Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign and its second $200 Million Challenge (to match a $355 million polio eradication grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) – see www.thisclose.net
This campaign emphasizes that Rotary is 99 percent toward its goal to eradicate this crippling childhood disease. The Rotary Clubs are to encourage their members and the public to support the effort to finish off the final one percent. The campaign’s tagline is: “We’re this close to ending polio.”
The centrepiece of the campaign is a print advertisement built around the tagline and a portrait photograph of each participant doing the signature “This Close” gesture with their thumb and forefinger, with display type providing the context. Club members can be featured, as can Tesco/Morrison/Sainsbury’s/etc. store managers, local personalities, school heads, class teachers, etc., i.e. wherever you take the campaign.
The District 1120 Polio Team see this advert as the key to publicising our campaign: by making the advert easy to personalise. Anyone who can take photos and work with Word can produce reasonable artwork.
I attach the instructions on how to produce a low-tech version of the print, see this link.
Here are two examples, which you can click on to enlarge: (be patient – they are large files and will take a little time to appear)
 |
 |
