HIV patients thanks to new treatments have a normal healthy lifestyle. There are no deaths. Aids is almost over. No one talks about it anymore. Our society has become more open and diverse, but HIV community says the opposite: people still reject them when they share their life, workplace, or a house with others. Discrimination of people with HIV is still a huge silent issue in Spanish society today: however, nobody talks about HIV anymore, seems like a thing from the past.

But how to capture media attention when there are other emergencies every day? How to make people experience the discrimination they cause?

The brief: awareness. Talk about HIV stigma again, grab media attention and make society think about a problem they think doesn´t exist anymore. And show our patients and HIV community our support in their daily life, not only with treatments but with their mental health.

Daniel´s Apartment is a real-life experience that proved prejudices and disinformation around HIV still exists.

In the midst of a rental boom in Madrid , we posted an ad in the main online real state agencies: a beautiful apartment to share in Madrid´s city center. Daniel answered the calls and during the conversation he dropped casually that he had HIV: everyone remained cool but in the end 81% of people never called back to visit the apartment.

We told Daniel´s story and the result of the experience in a video that ended up with a powerful conclusion: we are not more open minded about HIV, we are more hypocritical (and we have better manners on the phone than ever). The same stigma and false fears still exist., even though sharing an apartment has no risk of infection.

INSIGHT: People say they are super open and informed about HIV but wen know in the end, they still have prejudices.

KEY MESSAGE: While we try to be nice, we are a little bit hypocrite and misinformed when we experience it first hand, as HIV stigma and old prejudices are still there.

TARGET: Society as a whole, specially younger generations (20 to 40) that live in big cities and are open and diverse.

The idea kicked off with an ad in the Spanish most important rental platform, www.idealista.com. We knew some of our audience would be there looking like crazy for a room to rent in Madrid. The results to their response is Daniel´s apartment campaign.

DISTRIBUTION OF ASSESTS: We posted the video in SM. We distributed them to media and Spanish main HIV associations to get them united under one storytelling.

It all started with an ad on the housing and rental platform (April 25th). After 5 days of Daniel answering calls, we created a 2´ video with the results of the experiment and posted it in ViiV´s own channels.

We shared it to the most important Spanish media outlets: the story of Daniel and the real reactions of the people who called and turned down the apartment in the end, even when finding a good rental was a real feat.

In parallel we contacted the main HIV associations. Daniel's story got them all to speak with one voice on the same anti-stigma message, using their social networks and their influence to amplify the campaign.

After the experiment, we went further to fight stigma: we identified HIV misinformation and top false fears in SM and fought them one by one, with accurate information (micro content).

- More than 350 calls/conversations

- With 0 investment, 91% of Spanish media talked again about HIV through Daniel´s story

- +3225% HIV mentions in SM

- +1125% HIV online searches

- 11 speaking Spanish countries covered Daniel´s story. GSK Uruguay with the Ministry of Health used it to raise awareness in their AIDS National day.

- 4 most important HIV associations in Spain joined the campaign

- The campaign united the HIV associations to create the first pride parade against stigma in Spain

- IT BROUGHT A CHANGE IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF PATIENT CARE (HEALTH CATEGORY): FROM PHYSICAL WELL BEING TO EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALTH.