Condom advertising is coming to Italian television -- more than 20 years after AIDS arrived in Italy. Cornicello or condom? La Lega italiana per la Lotta contro l'AIDS wants Italians to make the rational choice.
But until very recently, irrationality trumped reasonableness when it came to condom advertising on Italian TV. That will all change in January 2008, with the airing of a series of taboo-breaking HIV awareness ads that mention condoms by name. The ads, by film director Francesca Archibugi and paid for by the Ministry of Health, are designed to help Italians, and especially young people, overcome their embarrassment in asking for condoms in pharmacies and other outlets.
One ad, shot in a pharmacy at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, shows a young man trying to get up the nerve to ask for condoms. His impatient girlfriend charges up to the counter and asks for them. An older heterosexual couple follows her example. Suddenly the pharmacist is overwhelmed by customers demanding condoms.
The original blogger of this piece believes: Italy’s new condom promotion campaign, though a step forward doesn’t go far enough (citing massive condom giveaways in New York City and Washington, D.C.).
Alas, my fellow blogger, we here in the US still have far to go in getting the act of acquiring condoms to be as second nature as buying a pack of gum. Sure there’s plenty of grand gesturing, but little leg up to help shift the mindset.
Actually, we can learn a lot from the humanness of the Italian campaign. Getting past a Spring Break mentality is a big hurdle for the US to overcome…Maybe if we all wish on our cornicelli, it can happen.
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