- CASE NO.
- 05 / 05
- BASED
- ATL · GA DPH
- ROLE
- EXPERIENCE DESIGN
- REV.
- v2026.04
01 · BRIEF · CASE 05 OF 05
Vaccine hesitancy isn't a comms problem. It's a showing-up problem.
Say YES Summer ran ten pop-up events across three cities, delivering 715 vaccinations where mass media and traditional outreach couldn't land.
↓ proof · 16px clearance
- DRAWING NO.
- 02 / 06
- TOPIC
- WHERE TRUST LIVES
- RUNTIME
- AUG 2021
- LAST REV.
- 04/26
02 · DIAGNOSIS · WHERE THE WORK ACTUALLY LIVED
The brief said vaccination rates. The real problem was trust — and where trust lives.
By August 2021, the audiences that hadn't converted weren't ignorant of the vaccine; they were saturated by competing voices about it. Mass-channel marketing was hitting its ceiling — in some segments, amplifying resistance.
↘ pivot · diagnosis → field
- DRAWING NO.
- 03 / 06
- FRAMEWORK
- CONFIDENCE → AWARENESS → ACCESS
- PARTNERS
- 24+ · 3 CATEGORIES
- LAST REV.
- 04/26
03 · APPROACH · CONFIDENCE BEFORE AWARENESS BEFORE ACCESS
Confidence. Awareness. Access. In that order.
Say YES Summer was framed against three goals, sequenced rather than stacked. Confidence had to come before awareness. Awareness had to come before access. A person who didn't trust the vaccine wouldn't convert no matter how visible the booth was.
The structural design call: make the vaccine available — don't make it the reason people show up. People came for the Savannah Bananas home game. They came for the Twilight Criterium festival in Athens. They came for the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. The vaccine was on the same block. The vaccine was always available. The vaccine was never the first thing asked of you.
Three partner categories carried different trust currencies:
CORE Georgia and local Health Districts handled clinical delivery. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson on offer. Choice preserved.
Living Walls, local artists, local musicians. Murals being painted. Live bluegrass. Bystanders had reasons to stay that weren't the vaccine.
Georgia DPH and CORE personnel on-site for conversation, not pitch. Questions answered with facts when asked. The booth replaced the algorithm.
CORE Georgia · Health Districts · Pfizer/J&J choice
UGA Vaccine Ambassadors · on-site conversation, not pitch
Σ 16 hrs
Living Walls muralists · bluegrass · Twilight Criterium
Live painters · chalkboards · Savannah Bananas
Σ 14 hrs
Forsyth Market · UGA campus · Georgia Aquarium
Pemberton Place · civil rights district · same-block placement
Σ 10 hrs
Σ LIVE HOURS
WHICH YIELDED → 715 vaccinations · over 40 live hours · across 10 events
40 live hours. 24+ partners. Three currencies, one program.
↓ field · the three-city tour
- DRAWING NO.
- 04 / 06
- ARTIFACT
- SAY YES SUMMER POSTER
- STOPS
- 03 · ATL · ATH · SAV
- LAST REV.
- 04/26
04 · DESIGN · THE THREE-CITY TOUR
Three cities. Three trust currencies. One program.
Three cities anchored Say YES Summer — chosen because each represented a different way trust mediates public health in Georgia.
AUG 7SAT · COASTAL
Savannah
CHATHAM CO. · COASTAL GEORGIA
Forsyth Farmers' Market · The largest and oldest public park in Savannah.
Savannah Bananas home game · 150 sell-outs since 2016
Mayor Van Johnson visited the site; local press picked it up. Vaccination stopped being a government program and started being a Saturday in August.
AUG 14SAT · CAMPUS
Athens
CLARKE CO. · BACK-TO-SCHOOL
UGA Vaccine Ambassadors led the campus campaign.
Twilight Criterium festival · 20K spectators · downtown streets
Local bluegrass played. Students queuing for bands found they could get a shot at the same booth. Multiple levels of engagement became the operating principle.
AUG 28SAT · METRO
Atlanta
FULTON CO. · METRO ANCHOR
Georgia Aquarium · the largest in the U.S.
2.4M annual visitors · adjacent to Pemberton Place & World of Coca-Cola
Public art display anchored the program's final weekend. Vaccinations ran in front of civil rights iconography at the National Center for Civil & Human Rights — the last geography of American public health contested on moral grounds.
Per-city: Atlanta 452 · Athens 175 · Savannah 88 = 715 vaccinations program-attributed across the series.
↓ EXTERNAL VALIDATION · WHAT 715 ACTUALLY MEANS
- DRAWING NO.
- 05 / 06
- CLAIM
- 715 · PROGRAM-ATTRIBUTED
- BASELINE
- HESITANCY · NOT POPULATION
- LAST REV.
- 04/26
05 · EXTERNAL VALIDATION · WHAT 715 ACTUALLY MEANS
715 is small on a dashboard. Enormous against a hesitancy baseline.
↗ CDC NATIONAL BEST PRACTICE · GA DPH adopted the four field-learning takeaways as operating principles for every regional expansion that followed.
↓ lesson · four mechanisms a dashboard couldn't have produced
- DRAWING NO.
- 06 / 06
- LEARNINGS
- 04 · FIELD-OBSERVED
- SOURCE
- ON-SITE · 10 EVENTS
- LAST REV.
- 04/26
06 · LESSON · WHAT THE BOOTH MADE VISIBLE
Four mechanisms a dashboard couldn't have produced.
Loved ones were the deciders.
Attendees arrived brought by someone who had already decided for them. Never design for the hesitant individual in isolation.
Information noise wasn't pro- or anti-. It was paralyzing.
Hesitancy was overload, not conviction — "too much information from both sides." The booth replaced the algorithm.
Choice was reassurance.
Offering Pfizer or J&J converted people a single option wouldn't. Optionality read as respect — "the vaccine" stopped being monolithic.
Multiple engagement levels let people reconsider.
Live art, music, murals gave bystanders a reason to stay and the distance to reconsider without having to commit. Reconsideration led to more shots in arms.
↘ handoff · the larger story
Handoff · the larger story
Trust-mediated work here. Operations transformation elsewhere.
Open Wipro caseMatt Stangl · CX, Product & Service Design Leader · Atlanta, GA