The Lovelife Brand (B): Evolving the Campaign's Communication Strategy for HIV Prevention in South African Youth

The use of sexual imagery that was the hallmark of the previous campaigns was not visible anymore; instead the messages appealed to the aspirational and optimistic aspects of the target audience to make them focused on their future. The communication strategy was being evolved continuously to keep it relevant to the target audience. However, many critics opined that the campaigns were still incomprehensible. The outdoor media messages continued to be controversial due to their content and visuals. The most serious debate was regarding the effectiveness of the program as loveLife had failed to achieve its original target of reducing the number of HIV infected youths to half by 2004.

Global Fund's decision was a major setback for loveLife, but loveLife insisted that its programs were effective and that it was confident of reducing the number of HIV infected youth in South Africa by 50 percent by 2010. loveLife pointed out that a national survey in 2003 had found a strong correlation between participation in loveLife programs and decreased incidence of HIV. Reacting to criticisms regarding its media campaigns, loveLife said that its messages were "deliberately provocative" so as to encourage discussion and debate among the target audience. It contended that the target audience were more brand-savvy and understood the messages which adults might not be able to understand.