Archive for November, 2006

You Have the Power

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J0316522The rate of new AIDS cases in Washington, D.C. is 12 times the national average. Washington, D.C. has a higher HIV rate than that of Nigeria, Angola, and Ethiopia – and 24 more of the 44 sub-Saharan countries. Whitman-Walker Clinic, a non-profit community-based health organization serving the Washington D.C. metro area, is focused on driving those numbers down through education and outreach. 

As part of our observance of World AIDS Day, we asked Donald Blanchon, the new chief executive officer of Whitman-Walker, to talk about the communications challenges he faces and the ways in which his agency addresses HIV/AIDS education and outreach. To respect the power of Don’s words, we’re going to post the entire conversation today rather than breaking it up into two days as is our custom. 

Ben Finzel: Despite 25 years of fighting HIV, we continue to see increases in infection rates in many straight and gay communities, particularly in cities like Washington, D.C. How do you think we should be communicating with the LGBT community about HIV?

Don Blanchon: The single most important message to the LGBT community is that you have the power right now to stop the spread of HIV. You can make such a difference not only in your own life but in the lives of your loved ones, friends and colleagues. Your power comes from the courage, knowledge, love and understanding that have been so generously given to you by the tens of thousands of individuals who bravely fought HIV over the past 25 years. You can honor this most precious gift by acting with a renewed sense of urgency, purpose and responsibility every day.                                  

Ben Finzel: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center (LAGLC) recently launched an awareness campaign calling on the LGBT community to "own" AIDS as a “gay disease." This approach has ignited a new debate about HIV/AIDS in the LGBT community and beyond. What do you think the campaign has achieved so far? Is the campaign relevant to Washington? 

Don Blanchon: The LAGLC campaign has achieved a very important objective within the LGBT community in Los Angeles. The ad campaign is renewing and re-energizing Los Angeles’ LGBT community—where the vast majority of new HIV infections are coming from in that city–to fight back and fight hard against HIV. The LAGLC is to be commended for taking a very real risk in alienating some individuals with such direct messaging. The real community benefit is that individuals in Los Angeles’ LGBT community are talking about HIV with a greater sense of urgency. 

We face a somewhat different yet equally important public messaging challenge in the metropolitan Washington area. HIV is impacting the health and welfare of the entire region and not just concentrated within the LGBT community. From this perspective, HIV is not a gay disease or a black disease but rather a virus that does not discriminate based on orientation, gender, race, age or any other factor. Our local challenge is bringing together community leaders and organizations from all walks of life to fight the spread of HIV.               

Ben Finzel: You celebrated a successful AIDS Walk event this year, after previous years of declining attendance. Do you think events like AIDS Walk represent a renewed opportunity to reach large numbers of people with an HIV prevention message? Are there better, more appropriate channels?

Don Blanchon: I am thrilled with the overwhelming success and number of participants in this year’s AIDS Walk. The event truly is an emotional one that brings thousands of people together whose lives have been touched by HIV. AIDS Walk also provides a great venue for raising the general public’s awareness about HIV and the need for more culturally competent and sensitive prevention and education strategies. 

I invite you and your loved ones, friends, and colleagues to join us next year for AIDS Walk 2007. Our goal is to increase the number of registered walkers from 5,000 to 25,000 people, or one walker for every person living with HIV in the District of Columbia.   

Special events such as AIDS Walk have an important place in our overall prevention messaging but are not the only vehicle that we use to reach people. We also educate people through our presentations and participation in various neighborhood health fairs, community forums, and other grassroots events throughout the region.       

                      

Ben Finzel: Whitman-Walker Clinic now manages DC’s Pride Festival and you’ve been successful in securing corporate sponsors for this event for several years. In addition to corporate interest in Pride festivals, are you seeing corporate interest in HIV/AIDS-related outreach and education?  Are there going to be new opportunities to engage businesses in HIV/AIDS education and outreach in the future? 

Don Blanchon: I believe that it is vitally important that our entire community — individuals, community groups, foundations, local governments and companies – fully engage in the fight against HIV. To that end, Whitman-Walker Clinic is actively pursuing community-based partnerships with individual companies that share our commitment to HIV prevention, education and care.      

Ben Finzel: What’s the one message you have for everyone as we observe another World AIDS Day? What’s the one thing we should remember and/or act on?

Don Blanchon: You have the power right now to make a difference in the fight against HIV. Act courageously, act responsibly and by all means, act now.   

| November 30th, 2006 No Comments »
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Marketing World AIDS Day

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In the past twenty-five years, HIV/AIDS has gone from a verboten topic to a mainstream focus for healthcare providers, corporations and marketers. HIV/AIDS drugs and treatment options are big business. And many corporations and marketers now use national and international observances such as World AIDS Day to announce new programs, partnerships or other efforts.

As we continue our week-long conversation about this year’s observance of World AIDS Day (December 1), we thought it would be interesting to take a look at what different organizations and marketers are doing this year to mark the occasion. Here’s a representative sampling of the activities corporations are conducting in the U.S., often in partnership with leading national or local HIV/AIDS service or research organizations: 

  • Light to Unite for World AIDS Day, an interactive campaign to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS sponsored by Bristol Myers-Squibb in coordination with the National AIDS Trust.

  • “Through Their Eyes” photo exhibit at the Hokin Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois, from November 30, 2006 through January 10, 2007 (sponsored by FH client Abbott Laboratories)
  • “Red, Hot and Rouge” fundraiser for Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. sponsored by Kimpton Hotels at the Hotel Rouge in Washington on Thursday, November 30
  • WAM Dance in Los Angeles on December 1, 2006, sponsored by the Entertainment AIDS Alliance, Clear Channel and Tom Whitman Presents (to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles)
  • Wrap & Rap with GMHC and Barnes & Noble, a community outreach and fundraising effort for Gay Men’s Health Crisis held Saturdays in December at the Barnes & Noble store at 675 Sixth Avenue at 22nd Street in New York City (starting Saturday, December 2)

Although I wouldn’t support a campaign that lacks a clear focus on education and outreach and a positive, constructive message, I think corporate engagement on HIV/AIDS education is critically important to keeping the dialogue going on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Engaging the public on this issue is increasingly difficult; if responsible corporate activities can increase public involvement, then they should be embraced and supported.

What do you think?  Do these campaigns work?  Are there other public education efforts that we should know about?  Drop us a line to let us know your thoughts or share additional information with us. 

Special Note:

As we wrap up our first theme week, we’re going to feature conversations with two leading figures in the HIV/AIDS community in the United States. Tomorrow, we’ll feature a Q&A with Donald Blanchon, executive director of Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. On Friday, check back for a Q&A with Dr. Marjorie Hill, chief executive officer of Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City.

| November 29th, 2006 No Comments »
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Maybe it’s time to bring back the “tombstones” of the 1980s

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I was born in 1981, the year before 37 year old Terence Higgins became the first person in Britain known to have died of AIDS.

I only have vague memories of the hard-hitting “tombstones” government adverts in mid-1980s (created by ad agency TBWA), but I still remember the fear and awareness this generated and the starkness of the message that it presented. The narrator, British actor John Hurt, provided the chilling voiceover.

"There is now a danger that is a threat to us all. It is a deadly disease and there is no known cure. The virus can be passed during sexual intercourse with an infected person. Anyone can get it: man or woman. So far it’s been confined to small groups. But it’s spreading. So protect yourself and read this leaflet when it arrives. If you ignore AIDS it could be the death of you so don’t die of ignorance."

I am part of a generation that has grown up without that same fear and who no longer see HIV/AIDS as a death sentence.

The tremendous strides made in the treatment of HIV and the gradual reduction in the stigma attached to those diagnosed with the virus have provoked a remarkable shift in attitudes that must be welcomed. The announcement by former Cabinet Minister Chris Smith in 2005 that he has been living with HIV since the 1980s gave hope to many that HIV need not prevent sufferers from living successful and fulfilling lives.

Sadly this has also left many young people ignorant of the risks of HIV infection and has fuelled complacency.

Read more »

| November 28th, 2006 No Comments »
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Perspective on World AIDS Day – the Communications Challenge

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Around holidays, medical meetings and awareness days, public relations firms often organize activities on behalf of their clients.  In other words, if news is happening, we try to have our clients be part of it and latch onto the attention and sentiment of the particular event. 

But I can’t help wondering if World AIDS Day is a bit more of a challenge.  What does World AIDS Day mean to different people? 

I worked at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York as a volunteer from 1982-1985 and as an employee from 1985-1988.  Back in those early days of AIDS, until the Rock Hudson diagnosis, the epidemic that was going on in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the panic attending it, was virtually unknown around the rest of the country.  The President had never even uttered the word "AIDS" and in fact, in 1982, it was still called GRID – Gay Related Immune Deficiency.  So, when the first World AIDS Day came around – to me, it meant that the world was finally acknowledging what had been going on.  It made those of us experiencing the effects of the epidemic somehow feel, if only a little, less lonely.  The world was finally going to pay attention.

During that time, I lost a whole generation of friends – dozens and dozens of friends.  I stopped going to funerals.  When my partner died in 1987, we didn’t even have a memorial service. 

J0402250Today, many of my co-workers are 25 years old.  They were born into a world where AIDS was a life-long reality, not a new-found horror that came out of the night like a tornado and disrupted our lives.  I was born into a world where such a thing was unimaginable.  I think my view of the epidemic, and my memories of it, are as different from their’s as night and day.

My father was a World War II vet.  I was born long after World War II.  He told and retold his war stories because he wanted people to know what it was like as a reality, not a memory.   

And that to me is the challenge. World AIDS Day, like AIDS, is all a matter of perspective. 

| November 27th, 2006 No Comments »
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Beyond the Red Ribbon

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J0337313According to the National AIDS Trust in the United Kingdom, approximately 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide and there were 4.9 million new cases worldwide in 2005. That’s an awfully big – and important – communications challenge.

World AIDS Day is Friday, December 1. In honor of this year’s observance of this annual wake-up call, we’re going to launch our first “theme week” next week (November 27 – December 1). Each day next week, we’ll have a different post on a communications issue related to HIV/AIDS.

In our posts, we’ll feature thoughts from health care experts and HIV/AIDS outreach and education leaders and a perspective from our United Kingdom colleagues. It should be an interesting, and timely, examination of the challenges of communicating about HIV/AIDS, trends in outreach and current campaigns.

We hope you’ll visit the site frequently next week and share your thoughts with us on this ongoing challenge for all communicators and the ways in which we might contribute to the dialogue that is so important to addressing the disease.

| November 22nd, 2006 No Comments »
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