The PSI BCC Blog

SCRUTINIZE Campaign Launched

SCRUTINIZE, a new multimedia campaign targeting South African young people aged 18-32, offers an interactive opportunity to learn about HIV. By scrutinizing behaviors, as viewed in short animated commercials known as “animerts,” young people can challenge their preconceived notions and established beliefs concerning risky behavior. These animerts will be broadcast on local television and in public health clinics via Mindset Health television. The campaign will also conduct events and activities at five higher education institutions.

Created in partnership with USAID, the Johns Hopkins Health Education in South Africa (JHHESA), and jeans label Levi's, SCRUTINIZE depicts animated characters in a South African township enacting behaviors that place young people at risk of HIV infection. Some of the topics addressed are risk perception, condom use and safety, multiple concurrent partnerships, transactional and intergenerational sex, and alcohol and sex.

The SCRUTINIZE website provides an interactive forum that allows users to submit summaries of events and community activities, along with pictures, which will be posted on the website. Similarly, certain characters in the animerts have established Facebook sites which encourage young people, particularly in South Africa, to benefit from the social networking of Facebook.

The SCRUTINIZE campaign has plans to broaden its features and will continually update the website with lively material in the interest of “flip[ping] H.I.V. to H.I.Victory.”

Guest blogger Jason Walton is a PSI HIV Department consultant and new media enthusiast.

Bringing It All Together with a Life Stage Approach

As PSI struggles with how best to communicate about complex HIV-related behaviors to increasingly varied audiences, I find myself thinking a lot about life stage communication. This means, in essence, making a product or behavior accessible to people in different life stages, while retaining consistent positioning. This approach, which hinges on segmentation, is more than just improved targeting - it can also mean consciously leveraging or even referencing life transitions like marriage or parenthood. Using a life stage approach fundamentally changes our relationship with our audience into a long-term one: it's the difference between viewing a teenager who's gotten married and stopped using injectables as a discontinued FP user and viewing her as a continuing client whose needs have changed. To date, we've seen life stage communication used most frequently in reproductive and primary health interventions, but the approach also has implications for other interventions that target people at different points in their lives. Could this be relevant for PSI and other organizations that are expanding their efforts in male circumcision (MC), for example? You'd be hard pressed to find something that dovetails more clearly with pre-existing life transitions - in the case of traditional circumcision - or that requires effective communication with such a broad range of audiences. The latter is particularly relevant in some countries in Southern Africa, which are contemplating national roll-out of MC services, with complementary communication efforts targeting not only boys and men of various ages (and circumcision statuses), but also their mothers, partners, and prospective partners. Could life stage communication be the way to bring it all together?

Speaking Books

At the annual Global Health Council meeting in Washington DC yesterday, I was reminded of an interesting BCC tool for low-literacy audiences: the speaking book. These books, which are large-format, hardcover picture books with a recorded soundtrack for each page, allow health workers, peer educators, and others to communicate basic messages about health and healthy behaviors to rural and low-literacy audiences. The foremost champion of speaking books is Books of Hope, which works with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) to help NGOs, CBOs, and government agencies develop and produce these books in a number of different languages for topics pertaining to HIV, TB, immunizations, malaria, and avian influenza.

My primary qualm about the books upon first viewing was the illustrations, which seem to vary a good deal in quality. When I spoke to Brian Julius, Chairman of Books of Hope, he was able to offer some insight.

Why use drawings rather than photos? Brian reports that although Books of Hope has used photos for some books (notably those produced with AED for use with audiences in the US), they've found that this can be more difficult and time-consuming than working with illustrators. Some of the challenges he cited were a greater need to revise/reshoot photos due to their specificity (viewers were more likely to feel that they didn't accurately reflect the target audience than with drawings) and consent issues around photos of children. He also pointed out that drawings can be adapted for use with different audiences through changes to clothing and other visual cues, thereby allowing Books of Hope to quickly revise and produce new editions of the books at reduced cost to the donor.

What kind of feedback have they gotten on the work of the different illustrators? According to Brian, Books of Hope has found that what really influences the audience's response to a particular book is not the illustrations, but the recorded narration. Books of Hope uses a variety of local celebrities - musicians, actors, etc - to narrate its books. Audience members "know" these people and their voices and seem to be drawn to them (and the novelty of the books' technology) more than the illustrations themselves.

Books powered by watch batteries can be played more than 50 times, and those powered by slightly more expensive (and replaceable) AAA batteries can be played up to 500 times. Research conducted in South Africa indicated that in one community, each speaking book was viewed by an average of 59 people (www.booksofhope.com).

You can read more about speaking books at www.booksofhope.com.

Imagine Afrika: A reality TV show promotes a vision of a future without HIV

Imagine Afrika, a reality TV show pitting teams of African young people against each other in a competition to address some of the problems facing the continent, will soon begin its second season. The 13-episode show, which spans five African countries, highlights the experience of twelve young contestants as they work with communities to generate solutions to local problems. The show's challenges focus on factors contributing to the HIV epidemic, including poverty and struggling health services, with the goal of "demonstrating the power of personal initiative, self esteem, and leadership." Each week, audiences across Africa vote for their favorite teams, while a panel of experts score their efforts. A season finale brings together all the teams for a final challenge.

Although the show has been well received, critics have noted the difficulties of developing a pan-African product that reflects the cultural, linguistic, and epidemiological diversity of the continent.The show's creators plan to conduct an impact evaluation of the show during the coming year.

Imagine Afrika was developed by the African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV/AIDS as part of its It Begins with YOU campaign, a multi-year pan-African HIV program launched in December 2006.

For more information, see www.itbeginswithyou.org/tv_show/index.html