AIDES Revelation
French NGO AIDES has launched a print advertising campaign featuring naked couples, promoting the good news that an HIV-positive person following treatment no longer transmits the virus. Anti-retroviral drugs are now so efficient that they make the virus undetectable in the bloodstream and sexual fluids of affected people. Hence, HIV-positive people no longer transmit HIV, even when having unprotected sex. Four black and white photographs deliver a simple message to the general public. HIV-positive people have a lot to pass on. But not HIV. Each print shows a couple making love while practicing a sports or artistic activity: parachuting, scuba-diving, dancing and playing piano. One of them (man or woman) is HIV-positive and passes on his or her knowledge, talent to his or her partner. With this campaign, AIDES shows another image of HIV-positive people : that of gifted people, in love, and who hope to show the world that they are not just their HIV-status.
“It is our responsibility to reveal this information to the most people possible”, explains Aurélien Beaucamp, president of AIDES. “Because what weighs most on the quality of life of HIV-positive people today is not the virus. It’s the daily discriminations they have to suffer. Indeed, there is still an enormous hap between the therapeutic progresses and the social perception of HIV. In France, 86% of HIV-positive people who have been tested and are now being treated have an undetectable viral change. They are therefore in good health and don’t pass on the virus. And yet, rejections in the sentimental and sexual spheres remain extremely important. According to our latest inquiry HIV, hepatitis and you carried out in March 2016, 49.1% of declared discriminations happen in a sexual context. These discriminations of the most intimate nature are extremely violently perceived by HIV-positive people: By fear of rejection, many people refrain from having sentimental or sexual relations, no longer dare to talk about their pathology, avoid taking their medication in public. All these situations lock them up in a form of auto-exclusion, which is truly detrimental to their quality of life and capacity to take care of their health”.
AIDES Revelation Credits
The AIDES Revelation campaign was developed at TBWA\Paris by executive creative directors Benjamin Marchal and Faustin Claverie, art directors Sébastien Skrzypczak, Morgane Alexandre, Carine Galluffo, and Alexis Antigny, print producer Laurence Collavini, photographer Mathieu César, account team Anne Vincent, Véronique Fourniotakis, Marion Floch, and Mirella Ghil, working with AIDES team Christian Andreo, Nathalie Gautier, Antoine Henry, Charmaine Da Costa Soares.
Print production was done at Iconoclast Image.
