News & Events

Arouse by any other name?
Marketing Magazine

Who knew? Seems men like to name their penis. At least that's the consumer insight behind a bilingual multi-media campaign for AIDS Vancouver by agency Rethink.

The campaign launched Sept. 12 with a television ad for the "Gay Men Play Safe" campaign airing on English CBC in Quebec. The ad shows men with pet names that include "Captain Howdy" and "Slim Jim and the Twins."

A billboard is text only and lists hundreds of names, while a more racy execution designed for booked media features crotch shots and names such as "Long Dong Silver" and "Chicken Baster." The tag line is "Whatever
you call it, thanks for keeping it safe."

Ailsa Brown, account manager with Rethink says the campaign is "a playful way to both acknowledge gay guys' sexuality and reassert that the majority of gay guys are practicing safe sex, minus the preachy
tones of past sexual health campaigns."

The pro bono campaign includes a TV spot, billboards, print, posters, postcards, bar coasters, shirts and condom packs.

The website was a collaboration between Rethink and Rachel Thompson of Blue Muse. The campaign will run for eight weeks in Vancouver, Edmonton,
Winnipeg, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax.

"Our big hope is that the campaign will go crazy viral," says Brown.

"Our gold standard around here is viral distribution."

The campaign is the second funded by a $562,000 grant from the Public Health Agency of Canada to run national HIV-prevention campaigns targeted to gay men.

Three years ago Rethink was behind the award-winning "Arouse" campaign that used the tag line "Condom or Cocktail?" to address the rising rate of infection among young gay males.

GAY MEN URGED TO PLAY IT SAFE
By Maria Hampton
Metro Vancouver

“Ding, Dong Johnson, even the Big Baguette, whatever you call it, thanks for keeping it safe,” that’s the message of a fly catching HIV-prevention campaign created in Vancouver and hitting the streets across Canada.

Public Health Agency of Canada figures show that HIV is increasing among gay men in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto with 40 per cent of new infections occurring I men who have sex with men in 2002, compared to 30 percent in 1996.

Dr. Tom Lampinen of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV Research said the new Gay Men Play Safe campaign had potential to reduce B.C. infection rates.
“Studies show that gay men fall into three groups: those who take HIV risks frequently, vary rarely or not at all. Three out of four men are in the latter two groups,” he said. “The really exciting news involves that second kind of guy…who takes HIV risks rarely. Real power and potential rests with him. If he can commit to no risk for just one to two years, he will force a decline in new infection rates.”

Phillip Banks, director of HIV Prevention at AIDS Vancouver, who co-ordinated the campaign, said it aimed to dispel perceptions that gay men suffer from “condom-use fatigue” and apathy.

“It’s time we recognize gay men for more than 20 years of practicing safer sex and using condoms,” he said.

For more information visit www.gaymenplaysafe.com.

 

On AIDS Ads: AIDS CAMPAIGN IS RIGHT TO HIT BELOW THE BELT
By Sue Montgomery
The Montreal Gazette

There are many reasons these days to love Canada and dislike the United States but my latest is our in your fae approach to the AIDS epidemic as opposed to their head in the sand tack.

Tomorrow a blunt, nation wide, government funded campaign will begin in Canada zeroing in on that all important male body part, the penis. It’s likely going to offend some of the more prudish among us, but let’s face it, how can you talk about preventing HIV/AIDS without talking about the role of Wee Willy Winky?
Prepare to spot your favorite nickname on posters around town for that part of the male anatomy that, for reasons I’ll never understand, is treated like a separate being. Who knew that la Brochette, le Shishtaouk and the Big Baguette were more than lunch specials?
The campaign will also treat us to close ups of Monsieur Penis, Mr. Freeze et al, decked out in various attire from leather thongs to tight jeans. These crotch shots will be hidden away in urinals however, after an advertiser refused to run anything too racy on its outdoor spaces.

The message of the gay Men Play Safe Campaign is “whatever you call it, thanks for keeping it safe,” and in French, “Peu importe son petit nom, merci d’en prendre soin.”

The idea is to reinforce the use of condoms-the best way to prevent to spread of what is still a fatal disease. There are no vaccines and there is no cure. For now this is the best we’ve got, so why not push it?

Now compare this with George W. Bush’s infantile and unrealistic ABC approach. A is for abstinence, B is for Being faithful and C is for condoms. In other words, condoms should be used when A and B fail, which they will. By then, of course, it’s too late.

No, give me acorn Andy, Bacon Bazooka and the Caped Crusader of Canada’s $560,000 campaign any day. Some might find it childish; others may find it cute, but you have to admit it’s catchy.

More importantly, it’s honest and realistic: You don’t protect your Willy, you’re not protecting yourself.
It’s also deliberate. Surveys following last year’s provocative campaign that showed men saying to themselves “he didn’t ask me for a condom, he must be negative,” suggested that there’s a perception out there, especially in Montreal and Vancouver, that there’s been a slump in condom use among gay men. Only a third of respondents believed other gay men used condoms. But several studies about male sexual behavior suggest that three quarters of gay men practice safe sex.

“We thought it was very important to establish what was the norm before the perception became the norm,” Ken Monteith, executive director of AIDS Community Care Montreal, told me.

The Gay community is still the most vulnerable when it comes to HIV- 40 percent of all new infections in Canada occur in gay men, or between 1,000 to 2,000 a year. At the end of 2002, of the estimated 56,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (an increase of about 12 percent from 1999) about 32, 500 were men who have sex with men.

The danger in the belief that condoms are falling out of favour is that vulnerable men-youth, minorities or those not in the best physical shape- might bow to pressure not to use one so as not to miss their chance at having sex.

But this campaign uses peer pressure to reinforce the idea that it’s cool to use condoms and only a nerd would dare to have unprotected sex. And what better way to do that than zero in on man’s best friend, good old what’s his name?