Believe it or not, a little bit of creativity can be infused into everything, even travel health.  My H&K health/pharma team colleagues work with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) - one of the leaders in the vaccine industry.  As you can imagine, developing campaigns to generate media coverage and awareness in the "travel health" category can be difficult, but the team put on their creative hats and came up with a great way to do it - through Olympic athletes.

With the Olympics almost a year away it was time for Australia's Olympic hopefuls to be vaccinated.  The H&K team saw an opportunity to change what could have been "standard procedure" to a media opportunity - hosting a news conference for the team's vaccinations and using it as a way to raise awareness of potential travel risks when traveling overseas.  More than 1,000 potential team members are being offered vaccinations for hepatitis, typhoid, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria, measles-mumps-rubella and influenza during a six-month immunisation period. 

Media coverage has been extensive, with a majority using photos of smiling athletes like gymnast Philipp Rizzo receiving his shot from Dr. Peter Baquie, the medical director for the 2008 Olympic team. 

This effort is a great example of using a human interest angle to drive mass awareness of a much-needed educational campaign.