Picture this: It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. You’re sitting in a bus full of people and suddenly, your mobile phone goes off! Everyone around stares at you because your ringtone shrieks, “Condom, condom, condom!”
The “condom, condom” ringtone is one of the most popular ringtones around the world with more than 700,000 downloads. It is part of a public awareness campaign launched in India by BBC World Service Trust, an international charity arm of BBC, in an effort to encourage safe sex and condom use to stem the widespread of HIV/AIDS. It’s a first attempt at utilizing mobile technology and humor to bring a social health message out in the public.
The “condom a capella” was sung by a playback singer, Vijay Prakash and was composed by Rupert Fernandes. It is based on the basic principle “jo samjha wohi sikander” which means “the one who understands is a winner”. The core message being delivered is that “smart and responsible men use condoms”. The idea is to make men think that if they’re responsible enough and if they care about themselves and their families, they will think twice and consider using a condom.
The message is also illustrated in a TV ad created by BBC which shows an embarrassed man holding a mobile phone blaring “Condom, condom, condom” in the middle of an Indian wedding celebration. While he’s all red-faced and flustered, the others around him thinks he’s smart and responsible.
The “condom, condom” ringtone is part of an ongoing mass-media campaign to break down inhibitions and kill social taboos related to condoms. It is also geared towards making condom use more socially acceptable and free from negative judgment in India where contraceptions and such are not widely used or accepted. The campaign aims to reach over 100 million people in the four states of India where approximately 2,500,000 Indian people are suffering from HIV with the most cases belonging to the western and southern part of the country.
According to Radharani Mitra, BBC’s World Trust Service Creative Director in India, the ringtones are fast becoming everyone’s personal statement of style especially with the 1 in 5 ratio of people owning a cellphone. World Trust Service has specifically created the “condom, condom” ringtone to provide a chance to transform the message into action.
The “condom, condom” ringtone is actually part of a large-scale two-year project which started as a contest in 2007. The strength of the campaign is that instead of telling people to talk, the ads would prompt people to talk. Their main objective was to get more men to talk about sex because research reveals that, the more men talk about sex, the more likely they will use condoms. So, World Service Trust launched a competition where contestants could win a mobile phone just by answering a riddle. The clue to the riddle was: “”It’s a sign of manhood… but it’s not a moustache.” Needless to say, a parrot, which is believed to represent smartness and talking, was chosen as the mascot. The contest successfully reached 150,000,000 men and over 400,000 Indians responded to the advertisements on the radio, TV, internet and other outdoor media. Contraceptive sales including condoms, went up by 85 million in only 6 months. Health officials and manufaturers said they are targeting at 3 billion condom sales by 2010 from 1.7 billion. They are also thinking about female condoms to improve the retail network.
The “condom, condom” ringtone is free and can be accessed by SMS shortcode or by visiting the website: www.condomcondom.org. The website also contains lots of information about HIV/AIDS.
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