AIDS Advertising Campaign has Evolved

It's safe to say that if you do not live under a rock then you have heard the recent unveiling of Charlie Sheen's HIV diagnosis on the Today Show with Matt Lauer. My roommates and I watched the interview on our phones at the dinner table because we were so shocked by it. However, when my father put into perspective how his lifestyle choices cause people not to be so surprised. In my opinion, before Charlie Sheen's interview I had no perspective on HIV and AIDS because their campaigns weren't the most successful. They were do to reposition themselves to gain awareness. The purpose of this blog post is to focus on the repositioning of AIDS campaigns from shock and shame to humor and hope.

Nearly three decades ago Louie Moses created the tagline "Don't F*** With AIDS" for their campaign, which is was plastered all over college campuses. This caused quite the controversy because of the foul language; however, Moses just responded by saying how "AIDS" was the ugliest word in that sentence. Yes, it brought awareness to the disease, but it captured this dirty and negative outlook by the connotation of the sentence. In my opinion, I think it is a terrible tagline! Yes, it makes me scared of the disease, but how does this create awareness? How does this develop a campaign to prevent the spread of AIDS? It just further establishes the nasty stigma that comes along with AIDS.

The most recent campaigns for HIV and AIDS awareness use the tagline "It's Only Dangerous If You Know It's There." Also, they incorporate a playful cartoon image. This is something we have not seen from AIDS campaigns in the past. In the advertisetment provided above, we see the image using a humor appeal of a women running into a door that she did not know was there. They use this metaphor because HIV/AIDS spreads when people do not know it is there, which makes it dangerous. This is genius! The underlying message is to get tested, but they are not just coming out and saying that. They are using humor, which is a complete 180 from previous years.

So, why the change in tone? Why did AIDS campaigns shift from fear appeals to humor appeals? AdWeek suggests that the industry's tone has shifted. Now, hope and humor is more accepted than fear and scaring people. Moses said that they aim to remove that negative stigma especially after the recent unveiling of Charlie Sheen's diagnosis. I agree with this trend. I believe that scaring people into getting tested is not the way to go anymore. We should not be terrified to get tested with the potential of sexually transmitted infection. It is time that there is a positive light shed on HIV/AIDS and this campaign is doing just so.

Finally, is this approach working? AdWeek found that the number of users directed to the campaign website HIVAZ.org shot up by 864 percent since this campaign was launched through billboards, restroom signs, video projections, digital and social media ads, and 15 YouTube videos. This campaign is repositioning HIV/AIDS and it is working. Hopefully, we can gain awareness of this disease and prevent it from getting worse. I think they are doing it right.