HIV Prevention Social Marketing Campaigns: Lessons Learned In The Field

Background:  Men who have sex with men (MSM) in San Diego County are at a disproportionately high risk for contracting HIV. In 2004, at the start of campaign development, men accounted for the vast majority of all HIV/AIDS cases in the county: 89% of persons with HIV and 93% of persons with AIDS.

Program background:  In an effort to help decrease HIV rates in San Diego, the County of San Diego contracted with Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD) to implement a social marketing campaign. The Clear the Air campaign was conceived and the CDCynergy Social Marketing model was utilized to guide the development, implementation and evaluation of the campaign, which was implemented between 2005 and 2011. The overall goal was to lower HIV/STD rates among MSM in San Diego County by increasing the visibility of HIV communication via campaign materials, leading to a normalization of HIV communication among the MSM community.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Prior to the launch of the campaign an evaluation plan for the campaign was developed by an external evaluator. Evaluation questions were developed to assess whether or not the campaign goals were met and to ensure that campaign activities were monitored and feedback from the target population could be collected. After the official launch of each campaign year, the evaluators began collecting data to determine the program’s success in achieving its objectives. Key informant interviews, online surveys, street intercept surveys, and online analytics were used to evaluate the campaign. Information about campaign activities collected included: frequency of appearance of print ads; number, location, and duration of the posting of billboard/bus shelter ads; copies of media attention garnered; number of visitors to, duration of visits and pages visited while accessing the campaign website.

Conclusions:  Development of the campaign, as well as more detailed information about the implementation, successes, and challenges, for each year will be presented. In addition practitioners will be provided with tips they can apply to the development of future campaigns. Overall, the campaign was well received by its target audience and was considered by both funders and implementers to be very successful in its implementation and outcomes. The evaluations also shed positive light on the Clear the Air campaign. The vast majority of evaluation participants who saw the ads reported seeing them more than once; participants who saw the ads were able to successfully recall the intended campaign messages; at least half of those who saw the ads discussed their HIV/STD status with their sexual partners after seeing the ads; using recognizable service providers in images, although not without risk, was an extremely successful way to engage the community in conversations.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Lessons learned from implementing this multi-year campaign and other social marketing/media strategies will be shared to help guide other practitioners in the development of future efforts and include: knowing the difference between campaign and promotional materials, using a model, conducting a needs assessment, choosing specific call to action, establishing stakeholders’ roles, planning ahead and budgeting effectively and other media strategies.