Our goal was to create content that was truly interesting to our audience. With a benefit that was bigger than the product.

It succeeded. Site visits averaged 10+ minutes. People watched because what they saw was immediate and true: others with the same hopes and fears they faced themselves. They saw stories of regular people told with honesty.

Our content was more than entertaining. It was inspirational and a reason to care. It showed our HIV-positive audience they were not alone. The content wasn’t something they had to sit through to get to something else. It was the something else.

HIV is no longer a death sentence. BIKTARVY and other treatments enable long, healthy lives. Yet the stigma that surrounds HIV remains—a sense of shame so profound it prevents people from seeking the treatment they need: ~50% of people living with HIV in the U.S. are not in care.

The objective was to change the way people felt about their diagnosis and inspire them to live their truth.

BIKTARVY is a modern HIV treatment that saves lives. But we needed to do more than talk about a product benefit. The idea was to show everyone, especially people living with HIV, that they were deserving of love and health.

To achieve this, we found 6 amazing people living and thriving on BIKTARVY. Their realness and honesty create an emotional connection that allows viewers to see themselves. To see that they, too, can love who they are.

The assignment we gave ourselves was to create a new cultural touchpoint for HIV. Forty years after the epidemic began, HIV in the U.S. still carries the specter of AIDS; the idea of the virus as a death sentence; And images of multi-pill “cocktail” treatments.

To break the long-standing barriers around HIV, we needed to do more than just talk about the product.

Our strategy was simple: Change the way people felt about their diagnosis by showing real people living and thriving on BIKTARVY.

Health marketing campaigns typically target people who are ready for treatment. But ~50% of those living with HIV in the U.S. struggle with the stigma of diagnosis and are not ready to seek treatment. The BIKTARVY campaign was designed to reach this group.

This audience does not look for health information through traditional searches if they seek information at all. But they do over-index on social media and YouTube. Being in the same places as our audience was crucial to the success of the campaign.

Six documentary films form the core of a campaign that includes print, TV, online advertising, in-office brochures. All were released throughout 2020.

Online advertising in particular drove site visits that averaged more than 10 minutes. YouTube drove one of the highest marginal ROI for the business, with a multiple that was five times more impactful than broadcast TV. It also offered a positive brand halo.

Increasing brand awareness was the most important measurable objective.

• Unaided awareness for BIKTARVY with patients has exceeded that of Gilead’s ATRIPLA, the first complete HIV treatment regimen; this is statistically significant.

• Unaided awareness with patients is also on par with TRUVADA (an HIV prevention medicine, also made by Gilead). This is the first time that any product has reached this milestone in the 14 years since ATRIPLA launched and in the 20 years since TRUVADA launched.

• Organic website traffic increased by 10.7%.

• Average time on site increased by 5.2%.

• Users entering the site through online drivers to real patient stories averaged over 10 minutes per visit

• BIKTARVY is the #1 HIV treatment in the U.S.

• Sales increased by 44% in 2020

• Approximately one-third, 305,000, of the ~1.1m people living with HIV in the U.S. are taking BIKTARVY

U.S. healthcare advertising is heavily regulated. Advertising must meet the parameters of a product’s government-approved prescribing information. Advertising is subjected to several rounds of review by the advertiser’s medical-legal board. If approved, advertising is filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. TV networks must also approve prior to broadcast.

Our audience is patients. In the U.S., an HIV diagnosis carries a sense of shame that prevents people from seeking treatment: ~50% are not on treatment. Seeing others, like those in our work, living healthy lives with HIV, lets patients know that they, too, are worthy of treatment and health.