Introduction [The Struggle for Meaning: A Semiotic Analysis of Interpretations of the Lovelife His&Hers Billboard Campaign]

loveLife, created in 1997/8, is a joint initiative by a consortium of non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) concerned with adolescent reproductive health in South Africa namely: Advocacy Initiatives, Health Systems Trust, Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa and the Reproductive Health Research Unit (RHRU). The annual budget for Love life is R150 million with core funding provided by the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation (R100 million), the National Department of Health (R25 million) and R25 million coming from additional sources. Its core partners are the Department of Health, the National Youth Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF (Love Life Brochure).

loveLife aims to reduce the rate of HIV infection among young South African adolescents by promoting sexual health and healthy lifestyles for young people aged 12-17. It expects to accomplish its goal through a brand driven, sustained multi-dimensional national programme focussing on making condom usage part of youth culture; establishing adolescent friendly reproductive health services; education; community outreach and institutional support (LoveLife, 2001, p.8). Chief Executive Officer for loveLife, David Harrison explains that there are two sides to the loveLife model for influencing the sexual behaviour of young people.

“One is putting the message out to young people the other is to help them internalise what it is we are trying to do. So the two sides of loveLife are the high powered multimedia on the one hand but on the other hand the service development, institutional support and the outreach. So that is the model these two working together media and interaction, this constant to and fro”.[1]

The messages of the loveLife billboards have generated considerable discussion within the media and amongst communications experts in South Africa. The debate has concentrated on the meanings and interpretations of the intended target audience to the messages being employed by loveLife in support of its campaign.

In a letter to The Star (June, 2001) Father Francois Dufor comments that when he asks teenagers what the loveLife Billboards mean to them “they don't even know what it refers to”. Daniel Halperin and Brian Williams writing in the Washington Post, “This is no way to fight AIDS in Africa” (2001) describe the loveLife campaign as being misguided focussing unprecedented resources on a Madison Avenue style HIV-prevention campaign targeted at young people. In addition they argue that while one of the main goals of loveLife is to promote condoms these are never explicitly mentioned in the media campaigns of loveLife despite research indicating low condom usage amongst the target population that loveLife is trying to reach. In an article entitled “Talking about HIV/AIDS – The loveLife Campaign” by Plus News, an electronic HIV/AIDS news service, it is argued that the controversy surrounding the loveLife campaign is owing to its “in your face and obscure style of conveying messages about HIV/AIDS”.

loveLife on the other hand maintains that its target audience understands the messages of its billboards and substantiates this with research undertaken entitled “loveLife Communication – market penetration and message take out”. The research consisted of a random survey of 1000 respondents, 600 young people and 400 parents, undertaken in September 2000. The survey indicated a 57.5% awareness of loveLife brand after the first year of the programme. (loveLife, 2000, p. 2).

When shown images of the lovelife billboards, 66.5% of respondents indicated that they recognised the billboards. In a population-based survey, 58.3% of respondents felt that they were ‘about real life,' 12.4% felt that the billboards did not affect them, while 27.2% felt that the billboards make them think and 5.9% felt they were encouraging sex (loveLife, 2000, p.5).

LoveLife currently spends R13 million per annum on its billboard campaign, and a further R5-million on mobile outdoor media.[2] Through utilising semiotics and a qualitative research approach the purpose of this enquiry is to test the meanings and interpretations that the target audience interacting with the loveLife billboards ascribes to the brand, and the messages and the extent to which this assists in developing a national discourse around the issue of adolescent sexual behaviour in South Africa. It is argued that meanings are not fixed but open to interpretation informed by culture, language and socialisation. loveLife assumes a high degree of brand awareness, as indicated by their research mentioned previously, which would enable those reading the billboards to provide a framework in which to contextualise the message. However, a quantitative analysis is limited in providing in-depth analysis and understanding of what loveLife is about would provide the handle according to which the messages on the billboards are interpreted.

[1] Interview with David Harrison, Chief Executive Officer: Love Life, July 2001, Johannesburg

[2] Interview with David Harrison, CEO of loveLife and Judie Nwokedi, Media Manager for loveLife, July 2001