Freud famously asked, "What do women want?" A much more urgent question is: What will make sexually active gay men put the rubber on the boner?
What are they thinking--or, more importantly, not thinking--when they decide whether or not to use a condom? How effective are safe-sex messages? Will they flash back that poster they saw on a bus stand? For those whose sex drive often trumps their better judgment, what level of intensity is necessary to send a message that will inspire personal restraint?
Some AIDS service organizations, along with advertising firms and government agencies, have a controversial answer: "social marketing." Activists and bloggers think they’re wasting precious time and public money. They consider them campaigns whose preachings fail to convert anyone.
What is social marketing? It seeks to instill socially responsible behavior among a specific audience through visually compelling, explicit images and frank language.
Several years after their debut, two landmark campaigns continue to spark debate while influencing HIV prevention efforts.
Read the rest in EDGE Boston.
What do YOU think about these types of advertising? Tell LifeLube all about it in the comments section of this post.
These ads have been around for a few years now. I think they're effective. Controversial? why? Because they're realistic? I'm so sick of this argument.
ReplyDeleteWell, speaking as a man with 13 years of experience living with HIV - I can't say these ads are realistic. I mean, how could they be? Only one of the series - diarrhea - has occurred to me, and I wouldn't define my health/being by that. Is living with HIV a picnic? Nope. But I am not sure these ads 1. dissuade the negative guys inclined to riskier sex from having the sex they want and 2. don't do damage to those of us living with HIV by painting us to be rather wretched. You may be sick of this argument, hon, but are YOU living with HIV?
ReplyDeleteZakkie - you have said this many, many, many times on this blog and in other spaces as well.
ReplyDeleteWe get it.
Why don't you try doing a study, or a pilot project, with your thesis and come back and report when you have something NEW to say?