The Brief

Youth Friendly Services offer free consultations to young people in Thailand who want to talk about sexual issues in a confidential setting. But why would teenagers open up to a government organization about their most private thoughts? Sex is a difficult subject to talk about, so we needed to introduce ourselves to Thai teens, earn their trust, and encourage them to visit our centers to consult with us. The objective was to increase visits to YPFS centers and raise the profile of the organization amongst teens.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

To connect with teens, we created three Facebook characters publicly dealing with sexual issues that teens struggle with. They quickly gained thousands of friends, and their pages became forums for teens offering advice and opinions. We then revealed to their 24000 Facebook friends that these status updates would be used as movie scripts, and we invited teens to audition for a starring role in three original movies about our characters. 13,000 teens came to our service centers and auditioned for parts in the movies, where they opened up to YPFS and shared honest stories about their sexual experiences and concerns.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Our three characters on Facebook became the center of an active social network of 24,000 teenagers. Over 13,000 teens auditioned for the X-Ray Film Project (providing valuable data to YPFS), and 24 were chosen to star in the movies. When the movies were released, 30,000 teens attended special screenings at YPFS service centers, and over 1,900,000 watched the films online. The popularity of the movies led Thai cable channels to screen them on TV, and they are now being used in Thai schools as sexual education teaching tools. The number of visitors to YPFS service centers increased 200%.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The X-Ray Film Project became a hot conversation topic amongst teens all over Thailand. We used Facebook to start the conversation, because Facebook is Thailand's most influential medium for Thai teens. We then leveraged the strength of our Facebook campaign into a project enlisting real teenagers to star in original movies about the sexual issues of normal teens. By giving teenagers a chance to audition, and share their own stories, we positioned YPFS as a trustworthy organization that empowered young people to be honest about their private thoughts. We changed attitudes, and gave teens a safe space to be heard.