Preventing HIV/AIDS with Condoms: Nine Tips You Can Use

The author draws on his experience from multiple countries in Africa, Southeast and South Asia and the Middle East to provide nine strategic points on increasing condom use. The underlying principle of his "nine tips" is expressed in the first tip: "Do what commercial marketers do". He recommends paying attention to any successes of commercial marketing to the population sector in the location chosen.

The second strategy, "Know your customers", includes a solid understanding of the knowledge, beliefs and behaviour of intended populations resulting from techniques such as significant pretesting and focus group techniques to obtain detailed information about key topics surrounding HIV/AIDS.

The third tip, "Strengthen condom supply and demand", is based upon "integrated supply and demand used by commercial marketers: to have the right product in the right place at the right price and with the right communication for each target."

The fourth principle is easy access: "Position condoms as ordinary household products." The strategy is to make condom purchase as easy and free of stigma as the purchase of any household product. Suggestions include a generic product name such as "Happiness," placement of condoms with toothpaste and razor blades as a daily hygiene product and placement in all kinds of shops including snack shops, tobacco shops, and tea shops where a target population such as long haul truckers might stop.

Tip five is to market a higher priced brand with a very low priced, subsidised brand to create the benefits of increased customer use and satisfaction and boosted revenues to fund the subsidised condoms.

The strategy in tip six is "Get intimate with condoms in the privacy of the workplace." The author cites the success of several programmes in locations as diverse as Namibia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka in which health promoters meet with groups of 20-30 in their workplace and hand out free condoms along with free information and discussion.

Tip number seven focuses on entertainment education, sometimes called "edutainment" incuding, for example, radio dramas, street dramas, TV drama, and sidewalk theatre. The tip is: "Entertainment reaches and teaches poor people faster and better... Although these initiatives require substantial budgets, the investment pays off in very substantial improvements in knowledge and behaviour change of women and men who are beyond the reach of mass media."

The eighth strategy, "Reach poor women by local marketing", focuses on women, including why and how this particular audience is crucial. The author recommends the strategy of local women-to-local women education campaigns using Avon or Tupperware commercial marketing successes as a model.

Lastly, tip nine deals with advocacy strategies of how to influence people at higher levels: "Advocate for support from policy-makers". This includes concrete advice to insure continued donor support and expansion of successful projects.