Gonorrhoea cases had almost doubled in the past three years. However, the general public remained blissfully unaware. Which meant that condom use and testing rates were down, and therefore treatments were being missed. And with most cases being asymptomatic and potentially significant consequences if left untreated, this was a big problem.
We found the light side of gonorrhoea by focusing on its spelling, like big posters with typos on them, search bars with humorous suggested searches, social videos where we engaged strangers in an on-the-spot spelling bee and radio ads plagued by autocorrect. After grabbing their attention with the ‘hard to spell’ bit, each execution then followed up with the ‘easy to prevent’ bit with a few key learnings sprinkled in along the way.
Our campaign brought delight to the least likely topic, but we earned more than just a few amused onlookers. We increased website traffic by 600%, which meant a whole heap of people not only engaged in the topic but actually clicked through to hear even more about it. We even amassed a few thousand followers along the way, demonstrating unprecedented levels of gonorrhoea-related interest.
