ViiV Healthcare wants people to go deep when talking about HIV rather than merely skimming the surface of the experience of living with the condition.
In a video series at the center of a recently launched campaign, the company pairs doctors, people living with HIV and other advocates for sit-down conversations about diagnosis, prevention, treatment and everyday life with HIV.
The “Navigating HIV: Real Stories, Real Impact” initiative, which kicked off earlier this fall, is a collaboration between ViiV and The Skin Deep, the maker of the multimedia project {THE AND}, designed to facilitate more authentic conversations and human connections.
In each of the campaign’s videos, the two subjects use {THE AND} conversation starter cards to talk more deeply about their respective journeys with HIV. One, for example, stars Garry, who lives with HIV, and his doctor Laura, who discuss “the power of love and understanding” when it comes to providing care for the condition. In another, Mercy and Vanessa, a patient born with HIV and an HIV healthcare professional, respectively, meet up to talk about the societal and personal stigmas specifically impacting women with HIV.
Each of the six conversations shared so far range from 12 minutes to nearly 20 minutes in length, and all are aimed at showing how having more open and honest conversations about HIV can lead to improved care, treatment and overall health.
Elsewhere, ViiV has stocked up the campaign’s accompanying website with additional educational resources about HIV. Linked webpages feature tips for talking to your doctor about the condition and planning for appointments as well as information about ViiV’s ongoing mission to end the HIV epidemic.
This isn’t the first time ViiV has built a campaign around opening up conversations about HIV.
Among the company’s recent consumer-facing campaigns was “Science on the Sofa”—riffing on parent company GSK’s video series of the same name. Each episode of ViiV’s series featured illustrated and animated explainers about various aspects of HIV that may be confusing or difficult to understand along with chats between the company’s scientists and members of the HIV community hosted on the eponymous couch.