Health-e (Cape Town)
6 July 2009
South Africa's youth have given the animated Scrutinize HIV prevention campaign the thumbs up.
Scrutinize recently won a 2009 Khuza Award, voted for by children and young adults, making it a first for a social marketing campaign to successfully compete against the big name brands..
The Khuza Awards are South Africa's biggest research-based youth marketing and communications awards. This year, over 3 000 young people aged eight to 22, cast their vote on ads in four categories (TV, print, radio and outdoor).
"As Scrutinize is a public health campaign that aims to reach young South Africans, the Khuza Award is the ultimate nomination and prize because it's voted for by young South Africans themselves and shows that social messaging, when done effectively, can be up there with private sector products such as DStv, Coke and Pepsi," said Richard Delate, Country Programme Director for Communication at Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa.
During the awards ceremony, held in Johannesburg Scrutinize received a bronze award in the television category voted for by teenagers. The Khuza study, conducted by HDI Youth Marketeers, found that young South African urbanites love humorous adverts, and that television advertising is the best way to connect with teenagers and young adults. In addition, the Scrutinize campaign was found to have a high 'talkability' factor among young South Africans.
"In my 20 years of global advertising work, I've never heard of a social marketing campaign featuring in a people's choice marketing/brand awards and certainly never in one polled amongst teens," said Cal Bruns, Chief Incubator at Matchboxology. "That Scrutinize was featured in the same breath as Coke, Pepsi and Volkswagen is utterly amazing and even more so in South Africa, where aspiration and the cool factor count for everything."
The animated advert was also selected as a finalist in the prestigious International Animation Festival, which was held in France earlier in June.
Scrutinize is a series of animated adverts that use local slang, identifiable characters and tricky situations that young people can easily relate to, conveying its messages in a fresh, fun and funky way. The Scrutinize campaign aims to raise awareness of HIV among young people and encourage them to take responsibility for risky behaviour - and already, its catchphrases such as "Flip HIV to HI-Victory" are being incorporated into popular culture.
In addition to the television adverts, the campaign has trained over 2 000 peer educators who are using Scrutinize every day to talk to young people in and out of school about the behaviours highlighted in the commercials. The campaign has also activated ongoing Scrutinize Live activities run by DramAidE at 10 formerly disadvantaged tertiary institutions.
The Scrutinize campaign is backed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa (JHHESA), the Levi's® Red for Life initiative and Matchboxology.
Visit www.scrutinize.org.za for more information.
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