 VASECTOMIA: "Um Acto de Amor"
Project Dates: 1988-89
Background
The 1986 DHS reported that only 1.6 percent of all family planning users in Brazil had chosen the condom as a family planning method. The average rate for vasectomy was 0.8 percent, with the highest rates for both condoms and vasectomies found in the southern state of Sao Paulo. The rates in this region were about double for both of the methods, largely due to the PRO-PATER (Promocao da Paternidade Responsavel) clinic in the city of Sao Paulo. PRO-PATER is a non-profit health clinic founded in 1980 to provide medical and educational services for male contraception and sexuality, who contracted JHU/PCS to develop and implement this mass media campaign.
Goals and Objectives
The purpose of this project was to use the mass media to promote vasectomy services in three regional centers in Brazil: Sao Paulo, Fortaleza, and Salvador. This campaign was one of the first integrated mass media campaigns to promote vasectomy in Latin America, and one of the first family planning campaigns that targeted to an all male audience. The campaign used television, radio, print, and an electronic billboard to convey its messages.
The three main objectives of the campaign were:
- Create awareness about vasectomy
- Motivate men to seek further information
- Refer potential clients to designated clinics for counseling and services
Baseline Survey
A survey was conducted to serve as the baseline study for the pre- and post- campaign evaluation. The surveys were conducted in Sao Paulo and Salvador in November and December, 1988. There were 515 men surveyed in Salvador, and 600 in Sao Paulo. These were ever-married men in the 25-49 age group.
The results revealed that for the most part, the target audience was knowledgeable and informed on contraceptive use. Ninety-eight percent reported knowledge of condoms, over 90 percent knew of female sterilization, and 96 percent were knowledgeable of oral contraceptive. Those currently using contraceptives were 76.4 percent in Salvador and 78 percent in Sao Paulo. The method of choice in Salvador was female sterilization representing the highest percentage of users with 32.2 percent and in Sao Paulo it was oral contraceptive with 29.9 percent. Condoms and male sterilization methods represented 6.3 percent in Salvador and 10.6 percent in Sao Paulo.
An interesting finding in the pre-campaign survey was that although 85.8 percent of those surveyed in Salvador and 96 percent in Sao Paulo had heard about the "male operation", only 40.2 percent in Salvador and 33.7 percent in Sao Paulo could identify the name vasectomy as that for the "male operation". This was very instrumental in the television spot in that the term "male operation" was used alongside the word vasectomy, giving more clarity to the spot for the target audience. Additionally, 50% of those surveyed did not know where to go for additional information on vasectomies. Therefore, a tag line was included for all of the spots that included the clinic's name that participating in the area.
Strategy Developement
The first part of the strategy was choosing the clinics that would participate in the program. The PRO-PATER clinics were located in Sao Paulo, and additional clinics providing vasectomy services needed to be identified, particularly those that subscribed to PRO-PATER methodology and procedure. The clinics selected were PRO-VAS (Programa de Orientacao e Planejamento Familiar), and SAMEAC (Sociedad de Assistencia a Maternidade Escola Assis Chateaubriand) in Fortaleza, and CPARH (Centro de Pesquisa e Assistencia em Reproducao Humana) in Salvador. All of the clinics had personnel that had been trained at PRO-PATER, and were knowledgeable of their methodology. All of the providers received refresher training in clinical methods and also in data collection. In addition they also received newsletters produced by the project, which contained scientific information, case studies, and updates on the campaign.
CQ/Dennison was the advertising agency contracted to work on the television spots and implement the campaign. They had experience with social marketing and were the agency that developed the print media campaign for PRO-PATER in 1985. In addition to their experience and creativity, they were sufficiently large to withstand the economic crisis facing Brazil at the time, and had a large client base enabling them to receive discounted rates for broadcast time.
Message Developement
Television. The television spot developed was an animated 30-second spot featuring 2 hearts, female and male, who in the span of 30 seconds portray the purpose and benefits of undergoing a vasectomy operation. The final version was the result of the pretesting with focus groups of ever-married men 25-49 years of age from Sao Paulo and North East Brazil, who were both vasectomized and non-vasectomized. In this version the two hearts entered to the music of the wedding march. One heart is the representation of an erect male, while the other remains upright to represent the sensual female. Through the sounds of excitement and kissing the hearts come together twice and produce babies. On the third time the female scolds the male and pushes him away. A vasectomy is then depicted in the male by two lines on the cartoon testicles. A voice then comes on to say, "Vasectomy, the male operation, is a quick and painless way to avoid unwanted pregnancies." The two hearts again unite to the sounds of kissing and excitement. The campaign slogan, "Vasectomy is an act of love", closes the spot followed by a tag line with the information on the participating clinic.
Due to the ingenuity of the television spot, and the endearing characters, the Dennison Advertising Agency won national and international awards including the Gold medal at the 1989 London International advertising Awards, and a Bronze Lion at the 1990 Cannes International Festival of Advertising Films.
Radio. The radio spot had a man explaining to his son about a vasectomy, as if he were explaining it to an adult. The spot closes with the same slogan and tag line as the other campaign components. To maintain consistency and recognition, all of the print pieces were identified with the two dancing hearts from the television spots.
Print. In addition to the television and radio spots, there was a print media campaign that was quite unique. Promotional advertisements for vasectomies were placed in VEJA, the country's leading magazine. There was also a first of its kind direct mail campaign promoting vasectomy with informational pamphlets. The subscribers of VEJA made up the mailing list. To support the print campaign, an electronic billboard was placed in Sao Paulo advertising the operation using the dancing hearts.
Public Relations. The other key component of the campaign was the public relations (PR) campaign that was implemented before the media campaign started. This PR campaign was able to create interest in the upcoming media campaign to the press and its key members. Through this process, interest in the campaign was generated and when this was coupled with the winning of the awards, provided incredible amounts of free press time, much more than could have been purchased in media time. Between March of 1989 and June of 1990, there were at least seventy stories of the campaign on television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, as well as air time in talk shows on both television and radio. Because of the positive coverage the campaign received, it actually extended beyond the three intended cities to an additional seven cities. It was estimated that an audience of 40 million people was exposed to at least one aspect of the campaign, according to the 1992-1994 UN World Media Handbook.
Project Evaluation
A detailed evaluation of the campaign was conducted, revealing the enormous impact on both numbers of inquiries and number of actual vasectomies performed.
***For more information about the evaluation, please see the journal article at the top of this page. |
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