HIV has perpetuated the stigma around sex that has limited frank discussion of sexual health for too long. With a lack of empowering, practical, and relevant education on sexual health, many people remain anxious, uninformed, and insecure when it comes to preventing HIV and other STIs.

HIV is still an epidemic: 1.1 million people are at risk for HIV in the U.S. and tens of thousands are diagnosed each year.

Many people don’t acknowledge they could be at risk for HIV. Others don’t realize they’re at risk at all.

Healthysexual was created to help people understand their risk, learn about their options, and feel confident about taking action.

Our objectives were to:

Empower people to take charge of their sexual health

Facilitate conversations about sexual health between patients and providers

Increase communication between sexual partners

Encourage STI and HIV testing

Create awareness of prevention options, including PrEP

Healthysexual brings “health” and “sex” together to make a new word and offer a new look at HIV prevention. It’s about what you do to be proactive about your sexual health, not what you like to do in the bedroom.

It’s sexual health that empowers individuals to take control and know their prevention options, including medicines like PrEP. It’s a reimagining of “safe sex’” to be more positive and inclusive of the prevention options we have now.

Healthysexual breaks through the anxiety and stigma that prevent people from taking effective action. And the “Honestly” commercial portrayed frank moments that helped consumers identify with their own HIV risk.

Healthysexual was created to help people take action—to help them develop healthier sexual behaviors. And it’s meant to reach people where they are, in the way they communicate. It is a fun, inclusive, and sex-positive campaign that promotes awareness and healthy sex.

Sexual health and HIV prevention messaging tends to focus on scaring individuals into taking action.

But there are still over 40,000 new HIV diagnoses every year in the U.S.

Something needed to change.

So we created Healthysexual, a sex-positive, inclusive program that educated and empowered our audience to take control of their sexual health.

We used the Fogg Behavior Model, which shows us that there’s a relationship between motivation and ability and when it’s properly triggered, behavior can be modified.

We created materials that spoke to core motivators like pleasure, hope, and social acceptance. Our Healthysexual actionable content then triggered our audience’s ability and motivation to create meaningful behavior change.

We gave our audience informative content that encouraged positive conversation and simplified the journey to becoming healthier…and having better sex.

Healthysexual content comes to life in two ways.

One is through a number of “cornerstone” behaviors. These include testing, using condoms, communicating with partners and physicians, and learning about PrEP. While one topic may take the lead in a particular execution, the complete list is always provided for context.

The second way is through honest and relatable moments of risk that we’ve all experienced. Highlighting these moments tackles risk head on in a frank way that allows for open conversation and action.

At launch, executions lived in print, online advertising, video (eg, YouTube pre-roll), and other paid media (banner ads and paid search). Exciting and engaging creative drives to deeper online content.

Content continued to blossom in new places as the campaign grew to include spaces like Tumblr, Instagram, a robust website, and national TV.

A common voice, color palette, and goal unify these elements into a well-defined brand.

Paid media promotions have driven over 203 million digital impressions, resulting in 1,096,018 visits to the Healthysexual Tumblr page. Healthysexual Tumblr posts have been seen over 44 million times (44,761,611 impressions) and the page has 22,693 followers.

Many are going further by becoming Healthysexual advocates, with campaign posts receiving over 70,000 reblogs (70,458) and multiple messages going “viral” by receiving over 9 generations of sharing.

Paid media has allowed the Healthysexual Instagram presence to grow considerably. With over 7,000 followers to date, the campaign has reached 1.6 million strategic audience members.

The Healthysexual “Honestly” commercial saw impressive results as well. Within 3 months of seeing the spot, there were 128,000 new HIV screenings and 246,000 consumers had a sexual health visit with an HCP.