Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care have launched the second phase of the “It’s Different Now” campaign, urging every Vancouverite that has been sexually active to take a free test that can determine within 30 seconds if a person is HIV-positive.
Developed by Vancouver agency FCV, the “Change HIV-story” campaign uses significant events in history – Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus; Martin Luther King’s March on Selma; the tearing down of the Berlin Wall – to show how social movements can bring about positive change.
The centrepiece of the TV, online, radio and print campaign is a three-minute video using still images from these famous events, as well as images of Medicare pioneer Tommy Douglas and from marches dedicated to both women’s rights and gay rights.
“The first campaign was very successful and we wanted to build on that momentum,” said FCV president and CEO John Starke. “The [campaign] suggests that people have a great opportunity to participate in making a big change to eliminate HIV and AIDS.”
The first phase of “It’s Different Now,” which launched in November, produced a 37% increase in the number of people who got tested for HIV. Approximately 1% of the people tested were found to be HIV positive, but showed no outward indication of being sick and had no idea they had been exposed to the virus.
According to Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, it is this group that is responsible for transmitting a significant number of new HIV cases. Getting people who may not know they are infected to take the test is an important step towards eradicating HIV/AIDS, since a drug cocktail known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has emerged as a highly successful treatment.
Since the development of the drug cocktail, for example, instances of HIV-positive mothers transmitting HIV to their baby have been almost entirely eliminated.
Starke said that the second phase of the campaign is meant to address the findings of why people might turn down the test, ranging from a lack of information about why the test is being offered, fear of people knowing they are taking an HIV test and the stigma of HIV itself.
A series of print ads feature images of Martin Luther King, along with gay rights and women’s rights marches, accompanied by the phrase “Now it’s our turn to make a difference.”
A radio ad states “If it only took one step to end HIV, would you take it? What if it didn’t require a subscription, or donation – just a single action you could do today, in less time than it takes to finish your coffee? Take an HIV test. Together we can do this.”
All of the ads drive to ItsDifferentNow.org, where visitors are urged to share the message through their social networks and are asked to sign a pledge indicating they will take the free test on their next visit to the doctor. As of Friday, 2,483 people had pledged to take the test.
