Who Are You Shopping For?
A few DEM Blogs ago, we wrote about spring being a Season of Preparedness (Tis the Season for Spring Preparedness). With the Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquake anniversary; the Tohoku, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami anniversary; Tsunami Preparedness Awareness week; and, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire anniversary there are numerous reasons to highlight emergency preparedness in spring. In support of this Season of Preparedness, we wanted to leverage the heightened public awareness brought about by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire anniversary to promote household preparedness. And thus the “Who are You Shopping For?” emergency supply shopping campaign was born. 
The "Who Are You Shopping For?" campaign kicked off April 16th and runs through April 30th and its goal is to increase awareness of what household items should be on hand during an emergency. The campaign targets the general San Francisco public and consists of signage displayed at local retailers, including Cliff’s Variety, Cole Hardware, Haji’s Hardware, Speedy’s Hardware, and Walgreens. We also created a post-card-sized comprehensive emergency supplies shopping list that also includes an “Events at a Glance” section listing community preparedness events taking place this spring.
Why “Who Are You Shopping For?” The reason why we are calling this campaign “Who Are You Shopping For?” is because we frame our emergency preparedness messages around what people value to inspire emergency preparedness behavior. “Who Are You Shopping For?” is a question directed to those shopping for their household, which can include just about anyone (e.g., parents; children of aging parents; friends shopping for friends; or people who live alone and shopping only for themselves). Our goal is to motivate San Franciscans to purchase a few extra everyday household items that would be important to have on hand after an emergency or disaster.
The campaign also delivers DEM’s core preparedness message: you are more prepared than you think; a message intended to dispel the feeling of inadequacy often associated with emergency preparedness. It is also a message we firmly believe is true for ALL of us and one that is important to spread because it gets the ball rolling, so to speak, when we realize we already have many resources in place that support our emergency preparedness.
DEM would like to express our appreciation to the retailers participating in the “Who Are You Shopping For?” campaign and helping San Franciscans along their preparedness journeys. We encourage all of our readers to visit and purchase their emergency supplies from our partner retailers: