The story of HIV awareness, PrEP and Born This Way

When we started Born, we also started Born This Way: our ongoing partnership with LGBTQI+ communities. As part of this offering to support normalisation / acceptance, health and wellbeing or those who are striving for equality, we offer our services at a discounted rate. Because we can, and we should. And this will never change. And so, we were incredibly proud to begin work with Emen8 / ACON to support their latest HIV testing awareness and PrEP campaigns. The briefs: Raise awareness around the need to continue HIV testing after a reduction in testing rates after COVID and raise awareness around the benefits of taking PrEP for prevention of HIV.

Working with Emen8/ACON

Before we started campaign planning, we spent time with the Emen8 and ACON teams to get a better understanding of the current sentiments and attitudes around HIV, testing behaviours and patterns, as well as changes in attitudes towards PrEP. We reviewed the latest research, and interrogated leading researchers and scholars on the subject. We talked about common misconceptions, and exaggerations in information. We spoke about lifestyle, stigma, progress and sex. It was a liberating, open and beautiful planning process, working closely with our client to get the campaign directions right.
 And from all of our discussions, we ended up with two clear creative directions. HIV Testing:  HIV testing is something that men that have sex with men know they should do, but often don’t, and the knowledge they should sits in the back of their mind. PrEP:  Men that sleep with men understand the immense benefits of PrEP, but it is generally not a part of their going out routine, and so they often forget to take it in preparation for a night out.