COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN

One of the challenges facing CHMT is to marry our "above the line" broadcast work with our "below the line" face-to-face Outreach work - to develop one cohesive, coherent public health education, information and behaviour change campaign. We use the word "campaign" to indicate that this is not a process of passively doling out information, but of actively engaging people with the information and making it applicable in the concrete circumstances of people's lives.

Communications research shows that above the line and below the line strategies are most effective when integrated into a comprehensive complementary campaign. In the run-up to the 2008 series of the TV show, CHMT found itself in a position to implement such a strategy. Communication agency Three Chord Thursday was selected as our partner for the campaign.

THE MEDIA ELEMENTS USED ARE:

1. ComutaNet

A substantial campaign through the ComutaNet network, which accesses millions of commuters each day in trains, taxis and taxi ranks. Posters, radio adverts, big-screen TV adverts and radio interviews have all been used.

2. Print campaign

Quarter-page sized newspaper adverts in three papers each week for the full 26-week duration of the TV series, on the day before the show is broadcast. The papers were carefully selected for their relevance to our target audience:

Daily Sun (readership - 4 755 000)

Kaapse Son (readership - 825 000)

Illanga (readership - 604 000)

3. Radio campaign

A hard-hitting radio campaign, running on 8 of SABC Radio's biggest stations in 5 languages:

Ukhozi FM - Zulu

Metro FM - English

Umhlobo Wenene FM - Xhosa

Lesedi FM - SeSotho

Good Hope FM - English + Afrikaans

RSG - Afrikaans

SAFM - English

5FM - English

4. Innovative rubber wristbands

Innovative orange rubber wristbands were created as a wearable reminder of the Beat It! slogan, "Protect Yourself. Protect Others". Rather than following the international trend towards using silicone wristbands similar to the "Livestrong" ones created by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, these orange wristbands have a distinctly African inspiration as they're identical to the black rubber bands which have been worn locally for many years. The wristbands were distributed attached to a flyer containing key prevention and health messaging.

5. Branded jumbo-sized matchboxes

Another innovative element was the series of branded jumbo-sized matchboxes, each also containing vital health messaging. Matchboxes are integral to the lives of many people in our target market, as they're used for lighting stoves and other domestic applications. One of these matchboxes would remain in a typical home for several weeks, and would reach all members of the family in that period.

6. SMS Competition

We partnered with Cell-Life, a company that uses Information Communication Technology (ICT) to develop solutions that support the management and monitoring of HIV/AIDS in the public health sector, to add an SMS competition to our campaign. Special competition numbers were set up - one for each of the media channels listed above - and then included as part of each advertisement. People were invited to send a free SMS to the relevant number to enter the draw for prizes of cellphone airtime - and then watch the show to check if they'd won. This helped drive viewers to the show, as well us giving CHMT a contactable database by the end of the campaign. In addition, each SMS was sent a confirmation response, which allowed us to remind entrants of the screening details of the television programme, our key brand message and our website address.

We hope to prolong the life of the campaign beyond just 2008, as CHMT has secured five years of funding from the Global Fund to Fight TB, HIV and Malaria for the production of the television series. We are looking to run the campaign concurrently for the next five years in order to be able to effect real behavioral change with regard to HIV and TB treatment literacy, positive living and stigma reduction, HIV prevention including partner reduction and transaction sex, STI's and HIV and gender violence.