USAID’s flagship initiative in the private sector health, Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Plus (SHOPS) has been instituted to promote the adoption of safer sexual practices, including delaying sexual debut and using modern contraception to avoid unintended pregnancies. Conversation media platform Abt Associates has partnered with Bobble AI, which develops ‘Conversation Media Marketing Solutions’ for The Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Plus (SHOPS) digital campaign.
Lack of education around sex & safe sexual practices among youth creates a myriad of social and environmental challenges in society. As it’s continued to be the most controversial and tabooed subject in society, Young people not being aware of proper safe sexual practices leads to depression and causes some serious behavioural changes. It’s even more dangerous for a country like India with 1.3 billion population and the largest democracy in the world.
Addressing these issues, Abt Associates launched this four-year SHOPS Plus project in May 2016, funded. by USAID, to bring the change in attitude towards sex and relationship among the youth. This initiative aimed to increase the use of family planning (FP), child health (CH), and tuberculosis (TB) treatment products and services among the urban poor through the private-sector approach. Under this initiative, Abt Associates also launched ’50 Shades of Ishq’ to connect with the local youth community.
Tanmay Guha Roy, Manager – New Media at Abt Associates, said, “Private conversations are at the heart of every intimate relationship. Bobble AI’s powerful conversation media marketing solutions will allow us to communicate with the youth in their own visual language on their chosen platform. These will help normalize the conversation around safety in sexual practices, and the media of stickers and GIFs will make difficult conversations easier.”
According to a Bobble AI report, during this lockdown, the time spent on Whatsapp has increased by 57.64% with a 49% increase in engagement and a 58% increase in overall emoji usage. Targeting the platform, Abt Associates says this SHOPS Plus digital campaign on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) will now leverage the most used expression medium among Millennials & Gen Z – conversational Stickers, GIFs & emojis.
As a part of this partnership, Bobble AI will design and develop a distinctive series of vibrant visuals (stickers & GIFs) around safe sexual practices which can be used as part of everyday conversations on chat messaging apps including WhatsApp. Each GIF and Sticker narrates and encourages safe sexual behaviour with quirky messages to reinforce the adoption of contraceptives and concept of consensual sex like ‘Condom Sense Nahi Hai Kya?’, ‘Wear Condom if You Care’, and ‘No Means No’, such that they are easy to relate and fun to share.
Anika Tanwar, Head – Brand Marketing Solutions at Bobble AI, said, “To reach the hearts and minds of the Millennial and Gen Z: one needs to be where they spend the most significant amount of time and dig into their needs and likes. Messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, allow the youth to have intimate conversations and are driven to check it more than a hundred times a day. We at Bobble have the right technology to build powerful solutions to connect with the targeted audience across socio-demographics in the most impactful way.”
