A mini soap opera co-created by one of the writers of Kate Modern, the interactive teen soap launched by social network Bebo earlier this year, is at the heart of a major new campaign to promote HIV awareness amongst 15- to 25-year-olds.
The campaign, HIV: What's the Story?, has been developed by the British Red Cross to drive awareness ahead of World Aids Day on December 1, and breaks today.
The initiative comprises video episodes of the soap, which will be accessible via Bebo, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook and accompanying profile pages.
There will also be a microsite dedicated to the campaign carrying interviews with young volunteers trained by the Red Cross to deliver HIV training and awareness to their peers in schools and youth groups across the UK, South Africa, Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan.
Visitors to the site will also be able to personalise their own profile pages using tools from the campaign site.
For further information and specialist advice, young people will be directed to the relevant sections of the Red Cross's main web site. "HIV/Aids is a major priority for us both in the UK and around the world with latest research showing that half of all new infections are among the under-25s," said Dorothea Arendt, the new media manager at the British Red Cross. The soap's storyline revolves around three characters - a young girl called Shabna who has a six month-old baby, her ex-boyfriend Marco, who discovers someone he has recently had a fling with is HIV positive and Kirsty, the friend in whom Shabna confides, who herself is living with HIV, although is yet to openly discuss it. As the three wrestle with the dilemmas posed by their situation, the drama is intercut with footage of three parallel fictional characters from South Africa, Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan who find themselves in similar situations. "While previous Red Cross campaigns have been more traditional and aimed at a broader audience, the aim of this one is to use digital media and story-led creative to encourage a younger target audience not just to think about the issue but discuss it amongst themselves," Arendt said. "We want people to realise that although the local context may change, young people are facing the same issues wherever they are." A traditional approach to this sort of brief would have been a direct response TV campaign, added Darius Pocha, the creative director of the agency behind the campaign, Enable Interactive.
"The starting point has to be where is the audience and where must you go to reach them.
"Once within the social networking environment, however, given the sharp fall in usage during the evening when The Simpsons or Hollyoaks go out on TV, using televisual story-driven content to reach this age group is key."
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