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“Inner Circle” highlights the power of trusted circles within AANHPI communities to share life-saving information. Centered on Ready.gov/plan, the campaign encouraged emergency preparedness through authentic, culturally grounded storytelling. We led with deep community insights—through AANHPI focus groups—and assembled a team that was over 90% AANHPI, ensuring authenticity in every aspect, from strategy to production, and empowering the community to see themselves in the message.
Our goal was to educate and empower AANHPI communities in the U.S. to prepare for emergencies. According to FEMA’s 2023 National Household Survey, 65% of Asian Americans and 58% of Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders lack confidence in their ability to prepare or belief that preparedness makes a difference. The main challenge was navigating the community’s cultural and linguistic diversity to deliver a message that felt unifying, not alarming. Multigenerational households added complexity—but also opportunity—to share preparedness habits through trusted family networks.
We grounded our strategy in behavioral research and focus groups to uncover cultural insights and test creative concepts. By targeting household decision-makers and tapping into the trusted “Inner Circle,” we crafted messaging that resonated and motivated action. As of March 2025, the campaign drove $4.1M in donated media value and 32.4M media impressions across OOH, TV, and radio—effectively shifting attitudes toward emergency preparedness in AANHPI communities.
Disaster preparedness can feel overwhelming and is often deprioritized in AANHPI households. We addressed this by breaking steps into manageable actions and grounding them in culturally familiar references—like using cookie tins to store other items and green oil to treat many ailments—to create moments of recognition and trust. These small but meaningful details resonate deeply, helping our audience feel seen, understood, and empowered to prepare. The campaign balanced cultural sensitivity with actionable guidance.
Midjourney was utilized in the early creative concepting phase to generate visual mock-ups for reference purposes only. AI was not used in any parts of the final execution.
