HIV drugmaker ViiV Healthcare is helping prospective HIV prevention or treatment users to make a choice that will help them later down the line in its “Do It For Future You” campaign.
The multichannel campaign positions ViiV’s collection of long-acting injectable options for HIV treatment and prevention as a way for people to take greater control of their health and future and looks to spark more discussions with healthcare providers about long-acting options, the company explained in an Aug. 4 press release.
“Do It For Future You” is ViiV’s umbrella campaign that centers on the idea that “the choices you make today shape your tomorrow,” the company’s head of enterprise communications, Bithiah Lafontant, explained in an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing.
“Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of life, and you're not really being proactive about the health choices that you're making,” Lafontant said. “We want people to stop for a minute and think about how the choices they make today are impactful in the future.”
The campaign roll-out features a dedicated website that hosts resources and information on treatment and prevention options as well as a video that brings the message to life.
The video sees three interconnected scenes of young adults, with dialogue and laughter interspersed with soft background music and a voiceover telling viewers to “do it for the you who’s still becoming.”
“The future doesn’t begin someday,” the voiceover says later in the video. “It begins right now, with what you do next. With a conversation. A question. A choice you can feel good about.”
In one scene, a young couple at a party runs off, ending up in a lit-up gazebo and sharing a moment before more friends join. Another sees a group of friends driving with the top down at night in a car lit up with blue neon lights, filming each other as they wave bubble blasters and dance before later stopping at a food truck.
Also woven into the video is a young woman training in the boxing ring, who falls again and again at one point before getting back up and locking in. The ad continues to cut between scenes, showing moments like the couple running through a sprinkler, the athlete nailing her targets and the friend group dancing and doing model struts down the sidewalk.
“Talk to your doctor about long-acting injectable HIV prevention and treatment options,” the voiceover continues, advising viewers to “make a choice that fits your life.”
By the end of the video, the boxer embraces her trainer and pumps her fists in celebration, while the couple kisses and the video pivots back to the laughing friends in the back of the car as the “do it for future you” tagline appears on-screen.
“Don’t wait. The future isn’t far off. It’s already here,” the voiceover says at the end.
The nostalgic, flashbulb-memory feel of the video is on purpose, Lafontant said, as it aims to capture the small moments one might not consider important until later in life. One of those moments may be the decision to talk to a provider about HIV options.
“We want people to be able to live healthy lives and have fun with their family and their friends and their loved ones, and so we think that by focusing on people's sexual health and making sure that they're empowered to talk to their providers, we're moving in that direction,” she added.
To continue spreading the word, the company will extend its digital strategy to out-of-home marketing later this summer in specific priority markets, including Atlanta and Los Angeles, according to Lafontant. So far, ViiV has gotten a “great response” and hopes to continue the campaign for “a time to come.”
ViiV strove to ensure that “anybody can see themselves” in the concepts presented, Lafontant said, and therefore included a diverse cast for the video across genders, races and sexualities. Diversity in HIV also extends to treatment options—Lafontant emphasized that there are “options that can fit anybody’s life,” as some may prefer an oral treatment or preventative to a long-acting injectable.
“We know there are people for whom a daily pill is going to be something that’s perfect for their lives,” but for other people, “that just doesn’t fit,” Lafontant explained.
ViiV’s own pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) injectable Apretude first hit the U.S. market in 2021 as the world’s first long-acting PrEP option, touting an every-two-month dosing schedule. Earlier that year, the company had taken its long-acting HIV treatment Cabenuva across the FDA finish line, with its once-monthly dosing later expanded to every two months as well.
Still, despite the evolution of the HIV market into the long-acting space, the HIV epidemic is still raging on with more than 39,000 diagnoses in the U.S. annually, according to ViiV. As it stands, only some 25% of people who could benefit from PrEP are currently receiving it, while nearly one third of people living with HIV in the U.S. have not achieved viral suppression.
As long-acting injectable options are a more recent development in the HIV landscape, the new options may be key to ending the HIV epidemic for good. So far, with daily oral options the norm for years, “the needle isn’t moving,” Lafontant said.
“We’re really hopeful that as long-acting options become more familiar, more people will select to go down that road and we’ll finally start to see those numbers moving in the direction.”
While ViiV was the first to open the long-acting door, Gilead Sciences has more recently entered the space with its twice-yearly Yeztugo. Next up on the horizon is Merck and its alimatravir, a once-monthly oral PrEP option that’s currently being studied in phase 3 trials.