Advertising News South Africa

If you love life, face it and take action

South Africa's HIV prevention campaign for young people, loveLife, is currently rolling out the next phase of its HIV - Face it campaign, introduced earlier this year. This stage zeroes in on the pressures and expectations of relationships, tackling issues of faithfulness, protection, and testing, as well as renewing the challenge to parents to open communication within families about sex, sexuality and gender issues.
If you love life, face it and take action

"We have reached a critical point in the planned evolution of loveLife's communication strategy and we are at a turning point in the epidemic where we are starting to see stabilisation in prevalence amongst young people," reports loveLife CEO, Dr David Harrison.

"Real declines in infection rates among young people are now within our grasp. The immediate challenge is that there are no further gains to be made doing the same thing we've tried; we have to push our communication strategy to new levels."

Deliberately provocative

"Our billboards are deliberately provocative," continues Dr Harrison, "to make them stand out from all the clutter about HIV and Aids, to keep young South Africans engaged with the loveLife campaign, but most importantly to ensure that South Africans continue to debate about the behaviours and attitudes driving the epidemic."

The billboards are part of loveLife's multi-media campaign designed specifically to keep the attention of young people and to get them involved in loveLife's extensive countrywide services. They also act as a bridge promoting loveLife's toll-free youth counselling service, thethajunction, which draws more than 300 000 calls each month.

The campaign is supported by extensive television and radio programming, loveLife's Uncut magazine (with a monthly print run of 650 000), and face-to-face outreach programmes implemented in schools, government clinics, youth centres and community-based venues across South Africa, targeting young people both in and out of school.

It's a DoG's loveLife

The new phase has a new creative designed by DoG Creative, which volunteered its professional time to loveLife.

The Vogue-styled photography by Steve Tanchel consists of striking black and white images which draw the eye to the models and the message. This technique was recommended by young people in focus groups held across the country for its stark reality and call to action imagery.

Mitchell Nicolou, DoG managing director, comments, "There was a lot more canvassing of opinion on the ground than is usually undertaken. All of the concepts went through rigorous testing and re-testing - it was definitely a unique, though greatly rewarding experience."

Responsible behaviour is modelled through short punchy statements that are positively affirming and designed to get other young people to seriously consider taking similar action. The delivery is by confident young people who know where they stand, and where they are headed.

Says Ian Franks, DoG creative director, "The headlines are all mildly confrontational; they're written to engage the reader in a conversation. For example; "If you aren't talking to your child about sex, who is?" highlights the problems often created when there's no dialogue between parents and their young children.

"As with all such work it's a difficult line to walk between getting people's attention in a meaningful way, and to be seen as insulting, it's a minefield of emotions."

Same characters

The people featured on the billboards are also the same characters who appear in loveLife's television public service announcements and for the past six months have been playing out real life scenarios of peer pressure, faithfulness, facing up to HIV, testing and teen pregnancy to name just a few issues.

"The characters have truly made an impression on the hearts and minds of young people across South Africa," says Dr Harrison. "Wherever I go, whether it's a small rural school or a clinic young people know about the PSA, eagerly await the next one and are keen to offer suggestions as to how the characters develop and react to the real life scenarios."

The campaign will run across 1700 billboards throughout South Africa, and debate and discussion about these issues will be extended into communities through loveLife's face-to-face interaction, with over half a million young people each month driven by its national youth corps of 1 500 groundBREAKERS, and through community dialogues between adults and teenagers, and a campaign directed at parents.

The debate will also continue across radio in all eleven languages in loveLife's weekly programming through its partnership with the SABC.

"Breaking the cycle of HIV infection means coming face-to-face with your own personal risk and making sure your behaviour protects you," says Dr Harrison. "The behavioural trends are pointed in the right direction and loveLife aims to keep pressing home the message with very direct campaigns until the cycle of infection stops.

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