Shedding inhibitions over condom

The story of how Condom Bindas Bol campaign clicked

Himanka Das and V S Mani

PSP-One (social marketing outfit) has the task to increase the use of condoms and hence prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS.

Funding was from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with ICICI Bank, with support of the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW).

Findings from a survey conducted by Synovate India in 2005-2006 across north Indian cities (among 1645 single and married men aged 20-45 years) showed that two out of every five men cited embarrassment in buying condoms as a reason for not using them.

Just say the word
A recent in-depth qualitative study conducted by ICICI-USAID to develop campaign communication unveiled that the root of embarrassment lies with the sexual connotation attached to the category as a whole amongst sexually active married and unmarried men.

Riding on this insight, Lowe conceptualised the campaign theme as “Condom Bindas Bol”. The communication was aimed at encouraging people to talk about condoms openly. It underlines how asking for condoms is an act of being responsible and caring and “not a big deal” so as to overcome the first barrier of saying the word “condom”.

Three commercials helped shatter the embarrassment and inhibitions associated with condom. The creative has a group of peers who, in different situations, coax one among them to say aloud the ‘C’ word (condom) confidently.

The demographic target audience included sexually active single and married men aged 20-29 years in 33 cities and smaller towns of eight states across northern India.

Media choice and interactive approach
With the multi-media approach, the media challenge was to take Bindas Bol concept to the people. Also, there was a norm by USAID not to expose the communication to those below 19 years old. Hence, usage of media/media vehicles was confined to target 20+ years.

The theme being vocal, TV was considered due to its audio-visual ability and wide reach to connect to masses. But 92% of households within target markets had one TV set.

Hence, passive viewing by below 19 years could not be avoided. With regard to this, an in-depth analysis was done and a strategic call basis that was taken to minimise the viewing rather than avoiding it by considering genres/channels/time bands that have minimal spillover to below 19 years.

The analysis indicated that news genre had the least viewership spill over (20%) compared to other genres. The spill over was further minimised by considering only prime time bands, as they had only 12-15% share of viewership among below-19 yrs. But with high levels of clutter and as per recently released findings of media engagement and ad avoidance study by

Intellect of Lintas Media Group revealed that ad avoidance is at 77% on TV. Hence, it was crucial to engage the consumer by making the content relevant and interactive. Initiative (Lintas Media Group) therefore developed an interactive format to connect with the relevant audience, in order to understand their discomfort over uttering the word “Condom”.

Initiative, in association with Zee News and Janmat, developed a customised content driven programme called ‘Bindas Bol’ where the topic was discussed and debated. Eminent panels discussed the issue with audience participation to alleviate their discomfort.

Taking forward the discussion to the people, opinions were sought via vox-pops, phone-ins and SMSes and were interspersed during the telecast of the episode to make them interactive and engaging

Result
The campaign is still on. Primary top line research feedback has shown positive recall figures. We are still waiting for the recall scores to come-in from various centres. The magnitude of the response through live call-ins and SMSes during the programmes indicates the fulfilment of the media objective of the campaign.

Himanka Das is media director, Initiative, Lintas Media Group, and V S Mani, V-P, Lintas

As told to Pritha Mitra Dasgupta