Can’t Pass It On

Background

9 years ago, it was proven that someone with HIV can’t pass it on during sex if they are on effective treatment. Terrence Higgins Trust were the first to run a campaign raising awareness of this game-changing fact, and now wanted an agency to re-launch the campaign, making it far clearer that this is about sex, and not focused on the misconceptions around other ways HIV can be transmitted.

The Brief

Our brief was to create a campaign that raised awareness of the fact someone won’t pass HIV on during sex if they are on effective treatment. This is an opportunity to raise awareness and reduce stigma. 

The challenge was to create a campaign that made it clear we’re talking about sex, while remaining appropriate for the key channels of OOH and Meta. In the first instance, the campaign is to run in Brighton & Hove with a view to a subsequent national roll-out.

The Work

We developed three potential routes for the THT team to choose from. Each approached the challenge of suggesting sex without being too sexy in a distinct yet direct way. 

We ran a focus group with a cold audience representative of our target groups to gather insight and help develop the most effective route. Quant insight from a warmer audience was gathered through a survey.

The route selected depicts couples in a pre-sex situation, with imagery chosen to reflect & appeal to each of our target audience groups. The impact of this campaign is in the message, and this has been distilled and refined to be as short, punchy, and direct as possible – suitable for our OOH and bus back spots and also, importantly, making it easy to remember and share.

Sharing was incorporated into the messaging with a neat twist on the ‘pass it on’ theme, encouraging the audience to help us spread the word and challenge preconceptions.

A range of ads were developed to reflect our audience groups, and assets produced include a variety of OOH formats, bus rears, digital display ads, social ads,
TV screens, email, and web banners, print ads and shareable assets.

The Outcome

It’s now live in our hometown of Brighton & Hove and generated great media coverage of the launch.