On March 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) announced COVID-19 as ‘a world-class pandemic’.

Responding to this unprecedented Pandemic situation, our government (Republic of Korea) and local governments carried out various promotional activities to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But too much information could be confusing to the citizens.

Above all, Suwon City, one of local government, contemplated that it should not be possible to respond to the Pandemic without disease-recognition, active cooperation, and action of citizens, so we needed to devise ways to trigger practical-behavioral changes.

At that times, as same nowadays, many experts said that wearing a mask can reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection by 85 percent.

We thought it’s much important point.

Thus, we organize a campaign to encourage every citizen to wear a mask and promote it all directions right away.

The message should be simple and clear.

The message should catch civic interest and derive cooperation.

Accordingly, Suwon City creates the main copy of "Mask Is the Answer".

We think, it is easy, plain and actionable phrase.

And so forth, main visual content consists of photos (selfies) of citizens wearing masks, which made the citizens feel participated this campaign under Pandemic.

Set up 3 dimensions / steps

1. Make the message simple and clear to get cooperation from citizens.

- communicate one message intensively

- make the best use of the message until the end of the COVID-19 crisis

2. Communicate with all 1.25 million Suwon citizens

- communicate through social media with citizens who are familiar with social & on-line media

- communicate through traditional, off-line content and public service center for those who are less familiar with on-line services

3. Use all available media in the city to conduct integrated marketing

- use all available traditional media and new media

- use all space where citizens' life reaches

- get cooperation from all public organizations who own public media

- support for voluntarily social activities of citizens

It has started on since June 2020.

1. Inform an on-line campaign and gather 1332 photos from each citizen

- "Be an Advertising Model" campaign; public offering of citizens’ selfie wearing masks

2. Create a main image with those selfies through SNS and expose it to more than 8400 units;

- Suwon public center (44 places)

- Suwon Railroad Station & Bus Information System (1343 units)

- Suwon City Bus Lapping (233 buses)

- Professional baseball LED board ad., professional soccer A board ad.

- Placard (827ea), stickers on 1170 buses, 4704 Taxis

3. Video clip is displayed on TV and more than 16,792 screens

- TV CF, Radio CM

- Elevator Video Advertising (792 screens)

- a bus advertisement (16,000 screens)

4. Others

- construction sites screen

- a sculpture on an old palace square (Hwaseong Fortress, World Heritage)

- each village newspapers, and many outdoor display media etc.

1. Suwon had the smallest ‘confirmed cases’ on COVID-19 among cities with more than 1 million people in the metropolitan area as of December 31, 2020.

City / population / confirmed cases

Seoul / 9.59M / 18,714

Incheon / 2.94M / 2,747

Goyang / 1.07M / 1,493

Yongin / 1.07M / 1,110

Suwon / 1.25M / 775

2. This campaign has been reported in 156 media articles, including KBS news.

3. Citizens voluntarily have participated in the campaign;

- Various small business owners banded together their own campaigns with a copy of "Mask is the answer."

- Citizens shared videos produced by individuals through SNS

This has been the Suwon’s longest-running campaign ever. It gained much momentum. Owing to the campaign, under pandemic situation, Suwon City has become an exemplary case for local government’s regional quarantine, and also derive changing the consciousness of the citizens and exercising their actions.