Are you covered for injuries sustained in a zombie attack?
Neumann University senior Kathleen Poliski posed that question in a video, the grand prize winner in a competition sponsored by Philadelphia's Independence Blue Cross (IBX).
The IBX: 90 Seconds challenge was aimed at encouraging millennials — those born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s — to meet the deadline for health care plan registration under the Affordable Care Act.
“We anticipated that millennials might be late to sign up, so we came up with creative ways to engage with them,” says Paula Sunshine, IBX vice president of consumer sales and marketing. “Using social media was an obvious choice…Our goal was to reach people where they live, work and play.”
The February call for 90-second videos resulted in hundreds of submissions; viewers across social media platforms selected the winners from 16 finalists.
“This is the first time we’ve done something like this and the response was tremendous,” says Sunshine. “We enlisted our local colleges and universities to help generate interest and spread the word.” (Temple University scored $10,000 as the participating school with the most video entry votes.)
Poliski was inspired while watching The Walking Dead over spring break. She recruited 15 friends and classmates, and used dollar-store makeup leftover from Halloween to transform them into zombies. The whole thing was shot in a day.
A community and media arts major, Poliski, 21, is graduating next month; the prize-winning video is part of her reel as she searches for a first job in video production.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” she says.
As for zombie apocalypse coverage — it depends on your plan.
Source: Paula Sunshine, IBX and Kathleen Poliski, Neumann University
Writer: Elise Vider