Results and Effectiveness

In the 6 weeks following the campaign, condom sales were 16% up in the areas near the movie theatres. Affection AIDS ran the campaign in 23 movie theatres in 8 towns. Encouraged by the response, our client has extended the campaign to cover 334 movie theatres in 79 towns across India.

Creative Execution

We grabbed the insight that people are interested in sex not sex education. That was our starting point. We zeroed in on the B-movie screen (Indian adult movies which conceal as much as they reveal) as the medium that would transmit our message. Working with B-movie producers, we inserted a video clip of a woman’s hand giving a condom pack to a man’s hand, which subsequently opens it, into B-movies right before the “sex act” was shown. Thus, the condom became a necessary part of movie sex. The movie screen was the lead medium to propagate our message. Collateral media like posters and hand-outs helped hammer in the message further. A ripple-effect of our campaign was that we found a free medium – the local press.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our client, Affection AIDS, wanted to take sex education to the Indian masses, particularly to the most vulnerable – the uneducated. Our audience was not likely to be attracted to sex education initiatives. They had a minimal, if any, interest in our brand. For people from the lower economic strata in India, sex is a subject that’s discussed among friends or emulated from movie screens. The client wanted sex education, the audience wanted sex. We found the middle ground – the silver screen – where each could co-exist naturally and provide maximum impact.