This week's student presentation about syphilis campaigns in different U.S. cities was pretty interesting. The Healthy Penis campaign established in San Francisco was an example of a social marketing approach that used humor and positive messages to provide information about the STI issue. An approach I consider to be quite rare in promoting health education and especially STIs. I thought it was funny and witty to see comic strips highlight the "Phil the Sore" and "Healthy Penis" as a way to bring attention to the importance of getting tested for syphilis among MSM. It would be great if we had some kind of similar marketing using humor at Planned Parenthood to educate and motivate other segments of community to get tested.
In our group messages for project 2, we also attempted to use humor (although more subtle) as a social marketing approach. But I think using humor can sometimes be difficult to apply in social marketing and a careful balance has to be identified. The syphilis campaigns identified in class were good examples of how cartoon messages using humor can convey important health information to receptive communities.
No comments:
Post a Comment