Sidaction, the leading French association in the fight against HIV, wanted to celebrate the diversity of love while also defending the LGBT+ community that is still poorly represented and that has been dear to them for many years. And they wanted to remind us of the importance of safe sex and taking precautions, so that all types of love can be protected.

In order to change our representation of love, we used the most famous book on sexuality in the world, the Kamasutra. And we created the Kamasutra+, the first LGBT+ version of the Kamasutra. We worked with 69 French and international illustrators from the LGBT+ community. The Kamasutra+ represented, for the first time ever, all genders, all bodies, all sexual preferences, in short, all love, in one dedicated book! A book of love and commitment, prefaced by French singer Eddy de Pretto.

Our strategy was simple: use a very universal cultural item to deliver a message to a larger audience, while targeting journalists and influencers. By choosing the Kamasutra, we were sure to have a greater chance of succeeding in these two objectives and of giving a more inclusive representation of sexuality.

With this book, we wanted to create a cultural object that would promote an inclusive and positive representation of love. A colorful and joyful vision! An object that was both a wonderful gift to offer somebody and an educational tool for diversity. This was a way of conveying a message of tolerance and prevention with a beautiful object.

We contacted various French and international artists from the LGBT+ community, through the association, its contacts and social media networks. We then had various meetings face to face with each of them so that they could express themselves freely, but with a common objective that was the book’s message.

The book was available from September 2022 in France and Belgium in bookshops, at various book fairs and on social media.

The visual universe was also further brought to life at the Paris Pride festival and decorated the Sidaction float.

The publication of the book was a huge success and greatly exceeded our expectations in terms of speed and scope. It positioned Sidaction as a loving and loved brand, even more so than before. Not just in its approach to representativeness, but also in the creativity the brand managed to express in its fight. This was reflected by the LGBT+ community as the book was very successful, selling out very quickly, to the point where, by popular demand, it will be republished in the summer of 2023.

The impact of this campaign and the book is on-going today, many months after the release and the following results are likely to improve in the future:

Sold out in 5 days

10 partner bookstores in France and Belgium

+5.6M people exposed to the campaign

+64 relay posts on social networks, by the media and influencers

25 press reports (print, digital, TV, radio)