FINCH & Motion Sickness have won the Lions Health and United Nations Foundation Grand Prix for Good for The Best Place In The World To Have Herpes, for New Zealand Herpes Foundation

 The Lions Health and United Nations Foundation Grand Prix for Good applauds outstanding creative work for non-profit organisations and charities. It specifically honours campaigns that promote social good and address global health challenges.

The worst symptom of herpes is stigma. Herpes support charity, The New Zealand Herpes Foundation (NZHF), wanted to “cure” that for Kiwis. Herpes causes all sorts of problems, from shame and isolation to depression and suicidal thoughts. Otherwise, it is treatable and relatively benign. A traditional behavioural change campaign would have been cold and clinical. Agency, Motion Sickness had another idea. It had noticed that up to 80% of Kiwis contract oral or genital herpes at some point in their lives giving New Zealand one of the highest rates of herpes stigma worldwide, according to research by independent insights agency, The Research Agency (TRA).

So Motion Sickness, with production company, FINCH, and DigPR, made herpes the humorous banner of national pride. It began working to make New Zealand “the best place in the world to have herpes”, the place with the lowest herpes stigma.

The campaign features local famous people including Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Sir Graham Henry, Sir Buck Shelford, Angella Dravid, and Mea Motu as celebrity presenters in the Herpes Destigmatisation Course, a series of lessons that condense multiple educational resources, often left unread, into accessible, approachable and comedic content.

In order to quantify being “the best place in the world”, TRA began by conducting a pre-campaign omnibus survey across 10 OECD countries to create the Herpes Stigma Index. The sample in each country is nationally representative of the population aged 18 and over, based on age, gender and region. In the survey, people responded to a question about their views on the Herpes Virus, which provided the baseline for the Herpes Stigma Index that ranked the countries at the start of this campaign.

The results showed that Spain started in 1st place with the lowest national herpes stigma. New Zealand had the second-highest rate of fear of stigmatisation, placing New Zealand 9th in the world.

In addition to the destigmatisation video course, the website also features the Herpes Stigma Index leaderboard to motivate people to take part in the video course by adding a competitive element with live updates derived from web data. By watching the video course content and engaging with content online, users could reduce their own stigma and help their country gain points to climb the leaderboard.

Since the campaign launched, Kiwis have already helped New Zealand climb to 8th place, but there’s still some way to go to claim the number one title. To measure whether the campaign leaderboard reflects a true shift in stigma, TRA will conduct a post-campaign survey across the 10 OECD countries.

Within the first 4 days, the campaign amassed over 5000 lesson views, and over 1.2 million views and 152,897 engagements across social media. Across all channels the campaign quickly reached 565,728 unique Kiwis and the current Google trend report for ‘herpes’ had increased significantly.

Credits:

Campaign sponsors: Whānau Ora, Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa & Sexually Transmitted Infections Education Foundation

Agency: Motion Sickness
Executive Creative Director: Sam Stuchbury
General Manager: Alex McManus
Head of Strategy: Hilary Ngan Kee
Creative Director: Melina Fiolitakis
Senior Creative: Will Macdonald
Intermediate Creative: Freddy Riddiford
Social Content Editor: Jolin Lee
Social Lead: Roxy Allnutt
Head of Production: Joseph McAlpine
Senior Designer: Hamish Steptoe
Artworker: Moana Peterson
Strategy: Chelsea Knowles
Account Director: Joe Fraei
Media: Ella Liddell, Shannon O’Connell, Dom Meehan
Archive Sourcing & Radio Concepts: Sophie Douglas, Freddie von Trott

Production Company: FINCH
Director: Alex Roberts
Managing Director & Executive Producer: Corey Esse
Executive Producer: Rebekah ‘Bex’ Kelly
Producer: Duncan Bernard
DOP: Marty Williams
Production Designer: Joseph Leary
Wardrobe Stylist: Olivia Dobson

Post Production: Atticus
Post Producer: Jadon Miller
Editors: Luka Turjak & Julian Currin
Colourist: Pete Ritchie
Lead VFX Artist: Stu Bedford
Sound: Big Pop Studios
DOP (Ashley Bloomfield video): Devan Narsai
2D Animator: Marcin Sulewski

Web Development: ED
Creative Director: Elliot Schultz
Design: Jeremy Ward
Strategy: Chris Ames
Developer: Mike Wojo
Project Manager: Lucien Jankelson

Research: TRA
Head of Strategy: Carl Sarney
Managing Partner: Shaun Fitzgibbon
Account Lead: Alice Oliver
PR: Leni Ma’ia’i & Daniel Smith @ DigPR

Media sponsors: TikTok, VMO, Beacon, VAST, JCD, oOh!, Shout, Lumo, Giggle, Jolt, GoMedia, 

Phantom, Hyper, Cartel, Stuff, YouTube, NZME, Trade Me & MediaWorks