An advertising agency hired by Riverside County to encourage residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19 also produced a separate campaign advocating against vaccine mandates.
The county entered into a $226,500 contract with the Irvine-based advertising agency Traffik to promote messaging aimed at boosting vaccination rates among communities of color.
This month, Traffik CEO Anthony Trimino launched what the agency has described as “the largest medical freedom campaign in history,” opposing a statewide mandate that healthcare workers be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The “We Are Still Heroes” campaign placed full-page ads in major newspapers across the state, pushing back against healthcare industry vaccine mandates characterized as “medical discrimination.”
“These frontline workers are sacrificing everything by standing for freedom, and we must take steps to ensure discrimination has no place in any industry,” Trimino said in an Oct. 21 press release.
According to Traffik, the ads successfully ran in The San Francisco Chronicle and The Orange County Register. The decision to publish the ads was reversed by The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, a decision identified by Trimino as “heavy censorship.”
Trimino was a candidate in the 2021 race to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, and has publicly criticized vaccine mandates imposed by Sacramento.
“I have never taken the position of anti-vaccination,” Trimino told The Riverside Press-Enterprise on Tuesday, explaining that he is against vaccine requirements ordered by employers and believes Californians should not lose their jobs for foregoing vaccination.
Brooke Federico, a spokesperson for Riverside County, told KNX 1070 that Traffik did not produce advertisements directly for the county’s vaccine promotion effort. Instead, developing creative content fell to a separate marketing agency.
“Traffik placed the advertisements on local media outlets and social media platforms,” Federico said.
She added the county was unaware of the “We Are Still Heroes” campaign before Tuesday, but said it would be honoring the remainder of its contract with Traffik, which runs through Oct. 31.
“The work performed during this contract has been satisfactory,” Federico said. “The county’s focus remains to encourage Riverside County residents to get the vaccine and to receive the booster shot for their health, the health of their loved ones and the health of their community.”
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