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loveLife campaign to focus on the future

Melanie Peters. 16 January 2004. Saturday Star. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
LoveLife's national HIV prevention programme for youth this week launched its 2004 billboard campaign, and gone are the sexually provocative billboards of some of its previous campaigns.

They are replaced by a fresh new creative approach supported by the tagline "Love to be there". In the past the loveLife programme has been criticised for being too sexually explicit and questions on whether it had actually achieved its objectives have been raised.

David Harrison, loveLife chief executive officer, said: "loveLife and what it stands for is now known by more than 80 percent of young South Africans. It's the right time to refresh and reposition our outdoor campaign to avoid it becoming wallpaper. " He said the main purpose of the billboard campaign was to sustain engagement with loveLife and to stimulate discussion. For that reason their creativity must constantly push HIV/AIDS communication into uncharted territory.

The new "love to be there" campaign deals with priorities expressed by young South Africans, namely to get good education and a job, to stay free of HIV and achieve a stable and happy family life.

Harrison said this future-focused approach to HIV prevention was based on both national and international research and loveLife's own experience of the impact of its motivational programme on teenagers across the country.

There was growing recognition that more effort should be directed at helping young people perceive and achieve the benefits of an HIV-free future, instead of only pointing out the risks and negative consequences of irresponsible behaviour.

Pessimism and low self-esteem puts young people at greater risk for HIV.

The new campaign juxtaposes a childlike drawing of an idealised situation with a real-life image of an individual living the dream. Harrison said the billboard most likely to raise eyebrows combines a photograph of a child looking up at her pregnant 30-something mother with a child's drawing depicting happy family life. Young people have heard the message of abstinence and many have responded positively.
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