Alex Yates
Creative Director
Giang Nguyen
Designer
Tuan Anh
Designer
Thu Vu
Illustrator
Background
FHI 360 is a nonprofit human development organization dedicated to improving lives in lasting ways by advancing integrated, locally driven solutions. Local partnerships and leadership have been at the heart of its work for more than 50 years. FHI 360 does everything from supporting civil society organizations protecting democracy and advancing racial equity to partnering with hundreds of community health organizations and workers to reduce rates of HIV transmission and combating tuberculosis outbreaks globally.
In June 2022, FHI engaged Fourdozen on a social media advertising project to promote use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in Nepal, Cambodia and Thailand.
Our Approach
Running online advertising to communities of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TGW) about HIV prevention in different, relatively conservative cultural contexts presents a significant challenge. The ads must be informative and welcoming, immediately identifiable by the communities in question, but must also minimize the risk of further stigmatizing these communities. This is particularly important in Southeast and Central Asia, where MSM and TGW communities already face marginalization and prejudice based on an unfair association with high-risk behaviors.
Hitting the exact right tone with a design is always important, but never more so than when trying thread a needle like this. Even though these ads were all part of a Brand Lift Study conducted with Meta, our approach to these creatives was to convene three groups of country-specific stakeholders and treat each project individually. What would be appropriate in Thailand, where MSM and TGW communities are relatively high-visibility, would not work for Nepal. We were also pleased that with FHI 360’s assistance we were able to include members of these communities in our stakeholder groups—something that’s essential to ensure our work isn’t only appropriate, but also inclusive.
The result was three distinctly different sets of still and motion-graphic ads. A playful tone in Thailand with images of recognizably Thai members of the target audience, slightly more subdued imagery for Cambodia that emphasized self care and fought against stereotypes of promiscuity, and an illustrated approach for Nepal that allowed our target audience to identify themselves by dress and habit without outing specific individuals.
We sometimes tell ourselves, at the end of a stressful day of product photography: “It’s not the end of the world. We’re not saving lives here.” In this case, these ads quite literally will. Every member of the MSM or TGW community that protects themselves against infection from HIV due to this brand awareness campaign is an advertising conversion you simply can’t put a value on. We’re so proud of the good work that FHI 360 does around the world, and so grateful to be able to make our contribution in these three target countries.
