Scare Me.

Black Sabbath and Van Halen circa 1978. 'Nuff said.

So as I commented on last week, I'm in the midst of creating a Latino HIV awareness campaign for the state of Minnesota. The one major stumbling block thus far? Focus groups. Instead of presenting work like we're the experts, 15-17 year old kids get to decide what the next great meesage in HIV awareness will be. Things we've acknowledged so far? They like color, graffiti, hip-hop, cars, and tattoos. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and 3 of the 9 campaigns we've presented have featured elements of all of these things. The overriding issue thus far is that the kids don't like scare tactics, and they don't care for proactive calls to action (fair enough). The problem is that we've created some pretty awesome work that was based on a scare tactic. I bring this up in the blog today after reading Geezer Butler's admission of why he named Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath. He said he noticed how many kids were paying money to go see scary movies, ad he thought the band could have a similar effect by creating scary music. It worked.

Now, during my research for HIV and AIDS awareness, I also found bazillions of great, award-winning campaigns that also used a scare tactic in the message. The fact of the matter is that HIV isn't fun or cool, and many of the kids we're targeting are not getting the message that the numbers of infected folks in their communities are growing at an alarming rate. Now, we're trying to give the pertinent message amongst the things they're interested in, to catch their eyeballs.

There are obviously a million other problems with state work. it's generally a giant beaurocracy, and to get an idea approved sometimes takes months. Then on top of all that, Governor Pawlenty has to be a big stick in the mud and deem showing condoms, sexual inuendo (or anything really having to do with sex) as too risque for Minnesota's youth.