Vaccine hesitancy – the reluctance to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines – has increasingly become a global pandemic. In fact, the World Health Organization has ranked vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 health threats in the world for 2019.

Clearly, vaccination is important, but rather than scare people into awareness, we wanted to create something positive and universally accessible.

These (animated) posters and film, as part of a global vaccine awareness campaign for UNICEF targeted at parents and parents-to-be to promote #VaccinesWork, illustrate the protection vaccines provide in a way that’s simple enough to be immediately understood around the world.

Our creative solution was to convey the importance and effectiveness of vaccination in an unmistakably simple way. Once we realized that an arm administering a vaccine to a child could provide a metaphorical barrier of protection, we knew we had something that would resonate across languages and cultures. With the help of some light-hearted illustration, we chose to show kids in aspirational roles as a vaccine safeguards them from clear and logical antagonists.

The accompanying animated film, “Dangers,” is based on the relatable insight that kids, by their very nature, are little daredevils who are constantly putting themselves in danger. With so many dangerous situations waiting for them around every corner, it makes sense to keep them safe from the dangers that we can by vaccinating.