Ogilvy UK

Client: PHE
Product: Protect Against STI's
Title: Let's Talk About Sex
Media: Online Film
Country: United Kingdom
Date Of Campaign: 15/12/2017

Background: The absence of condoms in both the mainstream media and in online pornography has meant that young people in England aren’t using them. In fact, almost half of all under-25s don’t use a condom when they have sex with a new partner. This means that diagnoses of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) have increased considerably amongst 16-24-year-olds in the last 5 years. We had a single objective for our campaign: to promote safer sex through condom usage.

Idea: Despite the growing number of young people with STIs, most assume it’ll never happen to them. We needed this age group to understand that anyone who doesn’t use a condom can get an STI, including them. So, we interviewed relatable 16-24-year-olds who’ve had one. But to get them tell their stories on camera, without worrying about the social stigma still attached to STIs, we needed to hide their identities. So how could we obscure their faces but retain the emotion in their stories? By using the visual language they already use to talk about their feelings; emojis. Overlaid onto our straight, single-scene interviews, the emojis not only added colour and drama, but also another emotional layer of narrative to the stories.

Results: In one month, our film generated over 500,000 video views on Instagram and 340,000 on Snapchat. Social media engagement was well above benchmarks for this audience, with the average view time of the long film at 52 seconds. The campaign also got a mention in parliament, which was an important win for Public Health England.More importantly over 60% of people who saw our ads said they would now use a condom with a new partner.