Product category:
Web design and development
News Release from: Enable Interactive
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 13 March 2008
Enable and Red Cross give HIV digital
exposure
Enable Interactive produced three integrated 30-second films to help the British Red Cross to engage and educate young people about the global HIV pandemic.
When the British Red Cross was looking for a way to engage and educate young people about the global HIV pandemic, digital agency Enable Interactive responded by producing three integrated 30-second films with characters and story lines that young people would relate and respond to and used the social media websites where these audiences engage and communicate Using a microsite in the British Red Cross website to host the campaign content and films, users were able to share their own personal stories in a moderated discussion forum and through links, gain advice and information on HIV
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 4 Jan 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The campaign, which ran for a month starting the week before World Aids Day, was launched across Bebo, Facebook, You Tube and MySpace.
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The brief for Enable was to highlight the effects of the HIV pandemic on younger audiences by listening to their attitudes and opinions and giving them the opportunity to tell their own stories.
As part of the campaign to help engage and educate, the British Red Cross conducted a survey about the attitudes of young people to HIV and AIDS in four different countries: the UK, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia.
"As the world's largest voluntary organisation, we wanted to facilitate conversations among young people from 'around the corner' and 'across the world' using a medium that is popular and likely to stimulate them," said Dorothea Arndt, New Media Manager, British Red Cross.
"In a three-way pitch Enable demonstrated an excellent understanding of both our target audience and of our commitment to promote and defend the dignity of people living with HIV or AIDS".
After talking to young people who made comments like 'I know HIV is a global issue, but why should I care about what's happening in Africa?' Enable developed a campaign based on the idea 'Different countries, same story' featuring a film 'nano-soap'.
Based on three characters in the UK who all know each other but have different concerns about HIV, each character has a counterpart from another country whose stories are intertwined and cut into the main story.
The narrative reflects the 'Different countries, same story' idea as they each finish by repeating the same lines revealing that they have the same story, the same concerns.
""Working with the British Red Cross on such an important project was very exciting", said Matt Connolly, Strategy Director, Enable Interactive.
"We had to come up with something that would achieve cut through with an incredibly hard to reach audience of 16 - 24 year olds, with a strategy to encourage and enable them to disseminate the campaign across their own networks.
"Through the creation of nano soap, and with appropriate seeding we were able to get the HIV and AIDS message right to the heart of the audience - all in three weeks and no media budget".
The campaign has been highly successful in its aim to raise awareness with 16-24 year olds.
The Bebo exposure resulted in over 25,000 profile views on World AIDS Day and the short films have been highly rated, not only by users of social networking sites, but has attracted the interest of the UK's national media as well.
"Enable's concept of using film content in this story-led creative linked to popular social network sites has made this campaign a great success and allowed us to showcase the fantastic work our young volunteers are doing here in the UK and elsewhere to confront the stigma and discrimination which still exist around HIV," said Arndt.
British Red Cross, part of a global voluntary network, helps people in crisis by responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies.
A major area of work for the organisation has been the ongoing battle of dealing with the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS.
Over the last 25 years some 30 million people have died of AIDS and it is estimated that currently 40 million are living with HIV.
The problem hasn't gone away - with more than half of all new infections affecting those aged under 25.
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