Marketing Communications

540 CHAPTER 15 E-COMMUNICATION

CASE 15:

The Global Fund’s Born HIV Free campaign

The Global Fund in need of a different

communications strategy

In 2002, at the directive of the G8, the Global Fund to Fight

AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created as a rapid

response mechanism to dramatically increase resources to

fight three of the world’s most devastating diseases, and to

direct those resources to areas of greatest need. The Global

Fund operates as an international financing institution. Its

purpose is to attract, manage and disburse resources to fight

AIDS, TB and malaria. It does not implement programmes

directly, relying instead on a broad network of partnerships

with other development organisations on the ground to supply

local knowledge and technical assistance where most needed.

It addresses gaps in country efforts to fight the three dis-

eases and strengthen underlying health systems by financing

programmes that complement those of other donors, and

seeks to use its own grants to stimulate further investment

by both donors and recipients. To date, it has committed

$22.6 billion in 150 countries to support large-scale pre-

vention, treatment and care programmes against the three

diseases. In just ten years, programmes financed by the

Global Fund have saved 7.7 million lives.

Like many of its counterparts in the development com-

munity, the Global Fund began facing difficult circumstances

in 2010 in securing funding to both maintain and expand

its life-saving programmes. Until that time, the Global

Fund’s communications strategy was much focused on a

few thousand thought-leaders and policy-makers in donor

countries. But around 2010, they started to receive strong

signals from government donors that they could not simply

continue to tell their constituents that they were giving the

Global Fund so much money because it was the right thing

to do, and that they had to make some real efforts to make

themselves better known to their voters. The lack of public

awareness about the Global Fund’s successes, or even its

existence, was also a consequence of its communications

strategy prior to the difficult global economic circumstances

that came to a head in 2010.

In May 2010, the Global Fund began talking to the general

public with the launch of the Born HIV Free campaign, a

six-month awareness and advocacy campaign that ran until

5 October, the day when donors made their three-year

(2011–13) contribution pledge to the Global Fund. The cam-

paign narrative and call to action was focused on the goal

of virtually ending the transmission of HIV from mother to

child by 2015. The Born HIV Free campaign was created to

put the issue of preventing mother-to-child transmission

(PMTCT) of HIV on the global agenda, get taxpayer support

for the work of the Global Fund and expose the Global Fund

to the general public in the context of the replenishment

and pledges for 2011–13. The campaign ‘ask’ was simple –

add your name to the digital petition that states your belief

in that goal, and affirm your support for your government’s

contribution to the Global Fund.

Source : The Global Fund.

The Born HIV Free campaign

communications plan

The Born HIV Free campaign was set up as a multi-stage,

multimedia communications campaign targeting the general

public from Spain, France, UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany,

Nordic countries and Ireland. It ran from April to October

2010 and consisted of a series of vivid and imaginative

animated films, social marketing tools, the campaign web-

site, and offline campaign events and products. The campaign

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