It’s Different Now
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- Scott Harrison, Program Director, Urban Health, HIV/AIDS at Providence Health Care
"From initial bid to final launch, everything was polished, professional and fast, from a team who love their work and clearly shared our passion."
It’s Different Now
Product of a partnership between FCV, Vancouver Coastal Health, and Providence Health Care, It’sDifferentNow.org (IDN) is an integrated campaign built to promote the normalization of HIV testing to Vancouverites outside of traditional risk groups, as well as encourage healthcare providers to offer patients tests as a standard part of routine checkups.
Constrained by a tight timeline and a limited budget, FCV was tasked with attracting IDN’s target audience in a way that would ultimately increase HIV testing in the region. Key to the campaign’s success was overcoming the longstanding stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, as well as the target’s propensity to disregard healthcare-related messaging about STI’s and HIV.
It’s Different Now centers around what is different with HIV, how all areas of HIV – from diagnosis to treatment – have changed over the years, and why routine testing is paramount to eradicating the disease. Each of IDN’s core messages was supported by creative and key facts not commonly known about HIV.
To overcome the target audience’s tendency to disengage with healthcare-related messaging, FCV removed “HIV” and related language from mass communications and instead designed the campaign to generate a curiosity that drives viewers to visit an interactive microsite and social media pages to learn more. By using positive imagery and purposefully vague teaser messaging, IDN engaged its audience in a non-sexual, non-accusatory way. The call to action drives an informative microsite that highlights our advancements in HIV knowledge, and how routine testing is paramount to eradicating this disease.
In addition to its microsite, the campaign message has been and will continue to be distributed and supported in a number of ways, including a Facebook page and Twitter campaign, outdoor TSA’s, city-wide posters, and an additional media push across digital, radio, billboard, and community outreach.
In less than three months, IDN generated over 14 million impressions within its target region; 1,400 members on Facebook, 75.6% of whom reside within 50 miles of Vancouver; and over 540 Twitter followers, many of whom include influential locals who helped extend IDN’s reach, such as Jan Arden, Bif Naked, and George Stroumboulopoulos.
Conversations across social channels resulted in increased dialogue about HIV and an updated comprehension of the disease. This in turn has begun to reduce HIV-related stigma and has contributed to a 36% increase in HIV tests in the target region. With these encouraging early indicators, the IDN campaign has been extended until March 2013, and will continue to target low-perceived risk groups as well as Acute Care workers and Family Physicians with the goal of breaking down the HIV stigma, increasing routine testing, and reducing HIV transmissions.