Source: Variety / Getty
ViiV Healthcare, the only pharmaceutical company solely focused on HIV, returned with their award winning HIV prevention campaign, ‘Me in You, You in Me’ today (June 7), adding a city and a brand new cast. Building on last year’s success including critical acclaim from Essence, Ebony, The Breakfast Club, Yahoo! News, the New York Post, and more, this year the campaign is focused on normalizing HIV prevention and increasing awareness among the communities who are disproportionately affected by HIV. This includes Black women, Latinx/e men, Black queer and gay men and trans women.
Ambassadors featured in ‘Me in You, You in Me’ include some of the most pivotal creatives and public figures spanning across an array of specialties. It includes singer, dancer and actress Tinashe, actor and author Taye Diggs, actor and choreographer Nicco Annan, rapper and artist Villano Antillano, social media star and model Nicky Champa, and actor Rafael De La Fuente.
‘Me in You, You in Me’ powerfully illustrates how finding community in others and overcoming bias are crucial to ensuring that everyone can play a part in HIV prevention.
‘Me in You, You in Me’ is unlike most PSAs in that it is both a campaign and a community movement-building initiative. At a national level, it brings together people from different backgrounds to experience and model what it feels like to strip away our culture’s pre-existing biases and stigmas through a unique social experiment. At the local level, the campaign is focused on four key cities—which are among the communities most affected by HIV—where it brings together a unique cross section of groups to build community awareness and engagement around HIV prevention from the ground up. This includes local cultural influencers, local businesses (ranging from churches, to bars, to coffee shops), community-based organizations and ViiV community liaisons. Together this group creates programming and messaging activities to talk about prevention in the places that people live, work and play. This includes everything from partnering at food drives to nontraditional advertising in bathrooms at evening venues to co-creating community art.
‘Me in You, You in Me’ is about real and unexpected conversations between people from different walks of life about HIV, as well as love, acceptance, stigma and all the other facets of life that play a role in HIV prevention,” said Marc Meachem, Head of US External Affairs, ViiV Healthcare. “We know that the communities across the nation who are most affected by HIV are also those who have benefited the least from the advances in HIV prevention. This campaign aims to reignite discussions around HIV and raise awareness of the different options for prevention.”
At its core, ‘Me in You, You in Me’ aims to normalize open and honest conversations about HIV prevention within the communities where they are most needed and to provide people with the resources needed to act. The campaign aims to spotlight that while HIV prevention is an individual act, it is also a community effort where we all have a role to play. For some, participation looks like individuals accessing HIV prevention medications, while for others it might be understanding U=U and utilizing HIV treatment as prevention. For families, friends and communities, prevention might involve starting conversations about HIV, educating others on the importance of HIV prevention, creating spaces where people are encouraged and supported for prioritizing their sexual health, and shifting the narrative surrounding HIV.
The campaign was produced by award-winning creative and entertainment studio Harley & Co. and directed by Sarah Hall and Arthur Vallin. Check it out below!
Taye Diggs, Tinashe, Nicco Annan & More Collaborate With Viiv Healthcare To Raise HIV Prevention Awareness Through Its ‘Me In You, You In Me’ Campaign was originally published on globalgrind.com
