Entry Category
Single Entry – Campaign Branding in a social marketing program
Name of Intervention/ Program
DPH: CareThatFitsYou – Self-care Campaign
Background and Situation Analysis
Care That Fits You is an initiative from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences (BIDLS) that educates and empowers cisgender-identifying men who have sex with men (MSM) to take care of their sexual health and connect to sexual health care services, in order to reduce the incidence of HIV and other STD/STIs. The initiative’s website, CareThatFitsYou.org, provides accessible, actionable, and non-stigmatizing educational content on HIV and STI prevention, and various features that cover specific questions around sexual health—such as what to expect when starting PrEP, how to choose the right condom, and practicing safer sex when you have genital herpes, to name just a few. The website also provides a service locator (map) of DPH-funded providers and programs, that can be filtered for STI and HIV testing and PrEP. MORE has launched several social marketing campaigns focused on preventative behaviors, including taking PrEP. In response to data showing PrEP use is lower among Black and Latinx MSM, MORE worked with BIDLS to develop the campaign “Self-Care is being PrEPared,” to encourage primarily BIPOC men ages 18 to 40 to consider or reconsider PrEP.
Priority Audiences(s)
The primary audience for the Care That Fits You initiative is cisgender men who have sex with men (MSM) in Massachusetts. For the PrEP campaign, Black and Latinx men, ages 18 to early 40s were the priority segments, based on ongoing disparities in HIV and STI rates by race/ethnicity.
Behavioral Objectives
Our campaign goal was to increase the uptake of PrEP among men of color who identify as MSM. We developed the following objectives: • Knowledge Objective: PrEP helps prevent HIV. • Belief Objective: Being prepared by taking PrEP is a way I can take care of myself and practice self-care. • Behavioral Objective: Consider PrEP. • Call to Action: Take a quiz to find out if PrEP may be right for you.
Description of Strategy/Intervention
Our campaign strategy positioned PrEP (the behavior) as an essential component of self-care (the core product or benefit), making prevention feel personal, empowering, and routine. Insights from our literature review and environmental scan revealed that while PrEP awareness had grown, uptake remained hindered by stigma and misconceptions. MORE developed three creative concepts that were then tested with the primary audience via an online survey. The most resonant concept reframed PrEP within the widely embraced concept of self-care—aligning it with familiar behaviors like nutrition, exercise, and mental wellness. By embedding PrEP into the self-care narrative, we normalized its use, making it a proactive and affirming choice rather than a reactive or stigmatized one. Our product platform included an online PrEP self-questionnaire on CareThatFitsYou.org. The anonymous five-question quiz helped individuals understand whether PrEP may be right for them. The quiz also reinforced a sense of agency in one’s sexual health journey. To ensure authenticity in the campaign’s creative, we conducted a photoshoot of men representative of the audience that had lived experience with PrEP. Our creative included both photos and videos of individuals doing self-care activities, from making a healthy breakfast to enjoying an impromptu dance party. The creative showcased individual activities and men doing activities as couples, as well. The primary headline, “Self-care is being PrEPared” was used alongside the supporting message “PrEP is a medication to prevent HIV” and CTA of “Find out if PrEP is right for you. Take a short quiz.”
Implementation
The campaign deployment strategy prioritized online placements, including Connected TV (CTV), digital display, social, and dating apps. We also leveraged digital out-of-home (OOH) screens in gyms, malls, and health care provider offices, as well as posters in restaurants and bars in priority locations. Our most successful paid media campaigns for Care That Fits You have used dating apps catering to gay, bisexual, and/or MSM communities and unique placements on these apps, such as inbox messages and interstitial videos. For the PrEP campaign, dating app ads resulted in 2.2x more engagement than regular display ads. The media mix also included Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads, and an ad unit “Near Me” that displayed a map of PrEP providers based on the user’s location.
Evaluation Methods and Results
MORE provided bi-weekly reporting on both campaign engagement through ad performance and evaluated PrEP quiz results as an indicator of consideration of the behavior. In just 13 weeks, over 1,250 individuals completed the quiz, an average of about 97 per week. There were over 400,000 clicks to ads. Dating app engagement was 2.2x higher than regular display ads. Google ads for PrEP-related searches had over a click-through-rate over 9%.
Entry Letter: R