Download loveLife makes its move

Case Study
loveLife makes its move
By David Harrison
In its continuing efforts to crack the AIDS epidemic, loveLife took a new leap with
the launch of its ‘Make your move’ campaign in March 2008. This approach goes
beyond promoting healthy sexuality among young people to trying to change their
perception of day-to-day opportunity.
Lesson: Good advertising must force people to think.
N
ot averse to controversy, loveLife’s aim
is to prevent HIV among teenagers, but
has always resisted compliance with
communication strategies shown to have little effect. Its premise is that HIV prevention should
start with young people, not where we expect
them to be; and that the major gains in HIV prevention lie in doing things differently – even if the
outcomes are less certain.
The World Health Organization recognizes
loveLife as the only national youth programme
that has gauged its impact in terms of reductions
in HIV. It can claim a robust association between
participation in loveLife and lower rates of HIV,
supporting evidence of a slow but steady decline in prevalence among 5-24-year-olds over
the past three years. Yet loveLife
is constantly chastened by the
enormity of the epidemic and the
modest dent it has had on overall
infection rates.
This self-discontent led us to
look at the available evidence differently. Our point of departure
was the perplexing question: Why,
despite almost universal knowledge of HIV and how to prevent its
transmission, do people still have
unprotected sex? This question
almost inevitably ends in cul-desacs, such as ‘despite all our efforts, they fail to
personalize and internalize the risk’; or, ‘poverty
prevents them from responding appropriately to
the message’.
But what if we framed the question differently? For instance, who gets the message and
doesn’t have unprotected sex? It turns out that
the strongest differentiator is school attendance.
Young people in school are far more likely than
their same-age peers to protect themselves from
HIV and teen pregnancy by using condoms. In
fact, condom use peaks at age sixteen. Clearly,
the message has got through. As young people
leave school, condom use declines, and HIV and
teen pregnancy both skyrocket in 8-9-year-old
women.
An intuitive explanation is that school-leavers
April / May 2008
want to have a baby. However, two-thirds of 824-year-olds say that their last pregnancy was unwanted. Neither can the decline in condom use
be explained by the duration of relationships or
higher rates of marriage – less than 5% of 82-year-olds are married. The most plausible
explanation for greater risk tolerance seems to
be their profound lack of opportunity, with only
a third likely to secure a regular job in the next
fifteen years.
Where school provided a place of relative safety, aspiration and belonging, school-leavers enter
a state of limbo with no end in sight – a time of life
aptly described by rap artist Sista Bettina as living
‘in the meantime’.
Often, in the marketplace of personal trade-
offs, future wellbeing is exchanged for short-term
security. No matter how idyllic their dreams for
the future, they are inevitably trumped by the
insistent desire for food and safety. With no assurance that tomorrow will be any different, many
young people acquiesce to immediate pressures
and social expectations that lead to HIV infection.
By implication, we must build the belief that life
could be a little better tomorrow - not only in ten
years’ time.
These insights take us beyond rational choice
theories of individual decision-making that have
dominated behaviour change constructs. We now
know that inequality predisposes to HIV infection;
thus at some point in the chain, structural factors
trigger behavioural effects.
We argue that perception of opportunity is the
pivotal mediator of structural influence on individual behaviour [Figure ]. Through this cognitive
link, the constrained choices and low solidarity
inherent in polarized societies predispose to high
risk.
‘Make your move’ aims to cultivate a look-foropportunity mindset — encouraging young people
to think outside the limits of their immediate environment; promoting personal initiative, motivation
and responsibility; building their ability to navigate
day-to-day pressures and expectations, and linking them to information about new prospects
for further education, personal development,
careers and jobs. As part of an expanded offering, loveLife will continue to provide its healthy
sexuality programmes to younger adolescents in
particular.
This new approach will kick off
with a high-intensity television, radio and outdoor campaign – initially seeking to position ‘Make
your move’ part of everyday
language The second phase will
engage young people in frank
discussion about their personal
expectations and the role of personal initiative and responsibility
in shaping life opportunities. The
third phase will develop a ‘life
navigator’ - a motivational and
personal skills tool designed to help identify and
link to opportunities for personal development. A
mobile ‘Make your Move’ social network will enhance communication and interaction.
Over the next year loveLife will integrate this
new approach across all its platforms including inclass programmes in 3,800 schools, the loveLife
Games involving half a million participants in
events across the country, and in partnership with
30 community-based organizations.
loveLife’s media campaign is supported by its
tollfree helpline (0800 2 900) attracting over
50,000 callers a month, and face-to-face programmes reaching over 300,000 young people
a month.
David Harrison is CEO of loveLife
Journal of Marketing 47