Billboards Take a Low-Key Approach to Preventing AIDS

Aiming to spread the message of “loving responsibly,” county officials are launching a $1-million HIV prevention campaign that shies away from explicit images but is intended to reach at-risk minorities.

The campaign consists of text-only bilingual billboards that include AIDS awareness messages such as “Respecting Yourself and Valuing Your Partner,” and “Caring for Our Gay Sons and Brothers.”

The billboards also display a telephone number for counseling and HIV testing sites.

The billboards will be placed in Compton, South-Central, East Los Angeles and other predominantly black and Latino communities.

The ads take a conservative approach at a time in which AIDS campaigns have been criticized for using explicit images.

Federal officials are reviewing AIDS prevention grants in San Francisco and elsewhere, prompted by concerns that recent marketing efforts might not be working and exceed the bounds of good taste.

Provocative ads have also caused controversy in other states where several ads showing homosexual couples and messages alluding to bisexuality have been discontinued by media companies and government officials.

“Getting them into this statement of loving responsibly is the first step,” said Charles L. Henry, director of the Los Angeles County health department’s office of AIDS programs.

“We want to engage them into thinking about what [loving responsibly] means. We feel that the message will be very impactful without having to use explicit language or suggestive images.”

But some say that the county’s ads are too plain to get their point across.

“Pictures would catch people’s attention more quickly because it gives them something to think about,” said Joe Erskine, 56, an African American truck driver who commutes between Culver City and Alabama. He said he would not be offended if he saw an ad displaying homosexual couples “because we are in L.A. It’s so prevalent here.”

The campaign strives to reach black and Latino men having sex with men and women, but the issue of bisexuality is not addressed in the ads.

Men constitute 90% of the cases of people living with AIDS in Los Angeles County. Of that 90%, at least 65% are infected through sexual contact with other men, according to county statistics. Though the number of infections among minority men is growing, reaching those men in prevention campaigns can be difficult because bisexual behavior often is not openly acknowledged or discussed.

“People are not sharing the full extent of their sexual activity,” Henry said, adding that the goal is to make people think not only about their risk, but also about the risk in which they are placing their partners. Gunther Freehill, one of the campaign designers, said that by making the ads uniform and nonspecific, they will avoid turning some people off.

“We are looking for a very broad audience. I don’t want to narrowcast it in a way that’s going to exclude the people who need to come to the table.... If you are too explicit, some people will shut down and say, ‘This is not happening in my community,’” Henry said.

James Benjamin, a 23-year-old African American who lives in South-Central Los Angeles, said he doesn’t know if explicit pictures including homosexual couples would translate well in his community.

“It’s nothing that people would accept easily,” he said while sitting at a barbershop in the Crenshaw district.

Because black and Latino groups have been particularly difficult to reach, AIDS prevention groups are seeking more creative ways to get the message across.

Last year, the HIV Prevention Trials Network, a worldwide AIDS and behavioral studies research firm with offices in Los Angeles, launched a prevention program called Fighting HIV Through R&B.; The program offered free tickets to rhythm and blues concerts to lure African Americans to get tested for HIV.

About two years ago, the health department used a 1953 Chevy lowrider to bring the AIDS prevention message to various car shows, hoping to appeal to Latino car aficionados.

And this year, AIDS Project Los Angeles released a booklet with more than a dozen personal stories from HIV-positive Latinos in an effort to encourage dialogue about AIDS prevention.

AIDS Project Los Angeles is taking a more direct approach, addressing the issue of bisexuality in a poster campaign in the San Fernando Valley. The posters use images of homosexual couples.

Nancy Wongvipat, manager of prevention programs, said that using sexy images among certain communities could be very efficient and that the county should not use a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Freehill said the health department has conducted several focus groups and plans to use pictures and more personal messages during future phases of the campaign.

Still, the county might not address the issue of bisexuality directly.

“The last thing we want to do is get caught up in a debate about identity,” Henry said.

“We want to engage them in a discussion about their behavior.”

The lack of pictures did not bother Miguel Humberto Lopez, who read one of the ads during a workout at El Centro del Pueblo, a Latino support center in the Rampart district.

When he saw the text, he was concerned because he had been having unprotected sex with several women. He discreetly stopped his workout, asked for a pen and paper, and said he would call (800) 367-2437 to get testing information.