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Using national media to increase access to sexual health testing
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Our objective
Leading provider of remote sexual health testing, Preventx, wanted us to deliver a media campaign that would create awareness of a relatively unknown STI called Trichomonas Vaginalis (TV), position Preventx as experts in the sexual health field, and highlight the disproportionately high positivity rates that existed within certain communities.
Preventx also wanted this campaign to make the call for more high-quality testing to be carried out, helping to identify infection rates, diagnose and tackle onward transmission.
Our approach
Our story was built on new data from Preventx, which they would present at the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV Conference. We worked with the team to turn this abstract into an engaging story that would achieve cut through in the busy health news agenda. We focussed on the disparities in positivity rates, the impact TV can have on people’s lives, and the urgent need for more to be done to tackle infection.
With our story written, we engaged a targeted list of journalists who we knew had an interest in sexual health and inequalities, issuing tailored pitches and offering our spokespeople for interview. We followed this with a broader sell-in to relevant titles.
Our results
We secured extensive media coverage, including 14 top tier national publications such as BBC News Online, Sky News, The Independent, The Sun and Metro. We also secured national broadcast interviews including on Sky News (TV) and BBC R1 for Preventx’s medical directors.
Our coverage contained high-quality depth of messaging, with 100% including information about disproportionate positivity rates, over 80% of coverage including our call for more testing and 88% of coverage highlighting that Preventx had conducting the research. Our coverage was viewed, seen or read an estimated 3.5 million times with almost 2,000 shares or engagements with the pieces we placed.
Our media coverage led to a significant spike in social media conversation about TV, with over 14 million impressions across social media, compared with just 19,000 the previous month. We also saw a significant spike in organic searches for TV, compared to the weeks before our campaign launched.
Outputs
14 million impressions across social media
Coverage viewed
3.5 million times
Client interviewed on Radio 1
Spike in new business leads
An increase in testing
The campaign led to three local authority areas extending their service offering to include TV testing. This covers more than 1 million people who will have TV testing as part of sexual health testing.
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