In partnership AMREF Health Africa (the largest health development NGO based in Africa) and the Coca Cola Foundation on behalf of Coca-Cola Africa, Project HAND UP developed and produced two videos in support of Coca-Cola’s 2021 world-wide campaign named “Open Like Never Before.” The campaign was conceived to assist restaurants to comply to international standards of COVID-19 safety protocols and integrate local government regulations for re-opening.
Due to the sheer scope of rules and regulations required to re-open under the law, Project HAND UP was asked to create a light-hearted training video for local eateries to sensitize employees and staff. This video would accompany in-person trainings so that restaurants understood the areas of compliance required to accept dine-in guests.
The second video, designed to roll out to the general public to explain how restaurants were complying with the government standards. We needed families to know that eateries had received adequate training and were indeed ready to “open like never before.”
This video liberally lifted content from the training video and we integrated the three most “famous” puppet characters in Kenya for the video. One, from the long running political satire program XYZ Show, “Keff Joinange” and two from the newly popularized Ask Dr. Pamoja public service announcements, “Bali The Monkey” and “Dr. Pamoja.”
Objective:
- Increase awareness of new restaurant guidelines during the gradual lifting of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
- Train restaurant staff on the Government of Kenya guidelines required for creating a safe work environment during the pandemic.
- Sensitize the public on the new regulations that restaurants are following to ensure the greatest amount of safety in the “new normal.”
- Make it fun.
What We Delivered:
- One Twenty minute training video for restaurant employees, staff and owners.
- One 6 minute community awareness video to sensitize the general public of new restaurant safety guidelines that are in place.
- BONUS: We added an optional humorous introduction video with our extra studio time and script over-runs.
Twenty minute training video for restaurant employees, staff and owners.
6 minute community awareness video.
Bonus introduction video.
Insights:
Complicated messages
- There were dozens of pages of rules and regulations. From little details like “washing your hands before you pick up your mask, and after you place it on your face – and again before you remove your mask and after it is removed” to the number of times per work day that floor managers need to check the hand washing stations for adequate water and soap supplies.
- There were myths that needed to be addressed, unenforced rules regarding color-coding of waste bins, discussions of cleaning vs. sanitizing vs. disinfecting, etc. The trainings went deep into the weeds, and we were required to explain the majority of these details in twenty minutes or less.
Fluctuating timings
- We had minimal collaboration with the client and were left to our own devices to create the content based on the Government Of Kenya guidelines and the extensive Coca-Cola system guidelines.
Confusing environment mid-pandemic
- We had minimal collaboration with the client and were left to our own devices to create the content based on the Government Of Kenya guidelines and the extensive Coca-Cola system guidelines.
Internal progress for Project HAND UP
- This was our first attempt at recording live sound and our first time to use human actors in any of our productions.
- Vaccines were not available in Kenya at this time. As a result, we used our own puppeteers and production crew as actors to limit our exposure. We self-isolated at home and shared transportation modes when it was time to work. Complying to regulations on-set was also a challenge, and we opted to shoot outdoors as much as feasible.