It was seen originally on February 29th as a story by Jack O'Brien in MM+M.

While some campaigns try to break through the noise and grab people’s attention, few do so by featuring a condom-covered banana in prominent locations in metropolitan areas around the globe.

Sometimes, but not always, public health messaging can be a bit staid and restrained.

However, some healthcare causes require a more confrontational, in-your-face approach.

That was the case earlier this month for International Condom Day, when the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) launched the Just Use It campaign.

Supported by its out-of-home (OOH) advertising agency billups, the AHF rolled out the one-day campaign across the U.S., U.K. and the Netherlands.

While some campaigns try to break through the noise and grab people’s attention, few do so by featuring a condom-covered banana in prominent locations in metropolitan areas around the globe.

The ad also included a link to the campaign’s website — useacondom.com — as a means of promoting safe sex practices.

Among all of the stigmas and taboos that surround various aspects of healthcare, sexual wellness may be near the top of the list. Regardless of whether it’s about men or women, young or old, conversations around sexual wellbeing can be difficult, which makes advertising about them only that much tougher.

However, billups’ global CEO David Krupp told MM+M that in bringing a largely domestic effort to the international stage, the eye-catching campaign was largely well-received in western European countries.

According to Krupp, the campaign was exposed to around 3 million people in a 24-hour period and made a considerable impact for a limited OOH ad run.

“The general sentiment was a little bit of surprise and delight based on the creativity of the campaign itself,” he said.

He credited AHF with coming to billups with some “provocative copy” that would shine a light — in a lighthearted way — on the campaign’s efforts to educate people about the effectiveness of wearing a condom.

Numerous studies have attested that wearing a condom can prevent not only pregnancy but also the spread of multiple sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV.

The World Health Organization stated in a fact sheet on its website that condoms have had a “significant impact” on the AIDS pandemic, estimating that increased condom use since 1990 has averted an estimated 117 million new HIV infections.

Still, over the past decade, condom use is down among American men having sex and there has been a rise in STDs and STIs at the start of the 2020s.

While one campaign can’t fully reimagine how people perceive sexual wellness or fundamentally change the behaviors of millions of consumers, a grand, cheeky display like this can linger in the minds of those who see it. To Krupp, making public health education a little bit more fun can have influence downstream.

“The hope is that a person is going to get a little bit more educated or take the time,” he said. “Or ‘Just use it,’ is going to be in your mind. That’s probably the easiest thing in the world to get a message across on behalf of a condom.”

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