Imagine a situation where critical conversations about HIV treatment and prevention are stifled by unspoken discomfort, shame or fear — where patients hesitate to voice their needs and providers miss having important discussions and therefore misunderstand their patients’ experiences with medication. This is the reality for many people living with or preventing HIV. Providers might assume that if a patient has an issue or challenge with a medicine, if it does not fit into their daily routine or lifestyle or if they simply wanted to try something different, that they would ask for it. Yet, for many, this is simply not the case. For example, 3 in 4 people living with HIV admit to withholding at least one concern — often related to sexual health — from their doctor, creating a significant barrier to effective care.
This campaign aimed to demonstrate the profound impact of open communication in these settings, as it can significantly impact patient satisfaction, adherence and overall health. Our goal was to inspire deeper, more human connections between healthcare providers and the people they treat within these critical healthcare interactions, ultimately removing stigma and improving patient outcomes.
Our objectives:
To inspire the type of open conversations that are essential to improving HIV care, ViiV Healthcare, the only pharmaceutical company solely focused on HIV, partnered with Emmy award-winning company The Skin Deep, leveraging their expertise in facilitating intimate conversations through their signature {THE AND} format, to co-create the video series “Navigating HIV.” This collaboration marked The Skin Deep's inaugural healthcare partnership, bringing their unique approach to storytelling to a complex and often stigmatized issue.
“Navigating HIV” features one-on-one conversations between healthcare providers, advocates, people living with HIV and those with reasons for HIV prevention. The videos offer viewers an honest, intimate and very real look into conversations about what often goes unsaid in the doctor’s office.
Despite the potential challenge of finding participants willing to share such intimate and personal aspects of their lives on camera, an amazing group of potential participants were identified, and the final individuals were meticulously selected to represent a wide spectrum of experiences within the HIV community. They ranged from everyday people navigating their life with HIV or preventing HIV, to seasoned advocates and long-tenured HIV healthcare professionals who have dedicated their lives to ending the HIV epidemic and providing exceptional care for individuals beyond their HIV status.
The relationships of each pair also varied greatly. Some featured doctor and patient pairs who have become close friends from knowing each other (or even working together) for decades, while some of the conversations featured pairs meeting for the first time during the filming session.
A major element for success was building trust with participants, finding people with excitement for the potential positive impact of shining a light on often unspoken experiences, and ensuring a safe and supportive environment throughout the filming process. The Skin Deep's signature unscripted approach, combined with carefully crafted open-ended questions, allowed authentic moments of vulnerability, connection and shared humanity to unfold organically.
The resulting conversations were not only powerful, honest and deeply moving, but also offered a rare glimpse into the complexities and nuances of the doctor-patient relationship and the raw emotion of a person’s needs, fears, challenges and desires when it comes to HIV. They illustrated that strength, resilience, empathy and “Ah-ha!” moments can be unlocked through honest and open conversation. The resulting short- and long-form content demonstrates the positive impact that proactive conversations about potentially uncomfortable topics can have on a person’s experience with medicine, relationships and overall mental and physical health.
“Navigating HIV” launched in September as a multiplatform partnership across The Skin Deep and ViiV Healthcare’s digital channels. The campaign featured a compilation of six, 12-18 minute episodes viewable via The Skin Deep’s YouTube channel, numerous social clips across channels and resources for facilitating conversations about HIV care at ViiVHealthcare.com/hivconversations.
The impact of "Navigating HIV" was evident from the first filming. Our main goal was to inspire deeper, more human connections within critical interactions between healthcare providers and the people they treat. The depth of emotion, openness and connection that came through in the conversations, both during filming and when watching the discussion, underscored the critical need for this type of dialogue. While quantifying the private nature of these conversations is challenging, the interest generated by this campaign demonstrates its potential to affect meaningful change.
“Navigating HIV” generated over 1.7 million organic views across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok as of December 17. It also sparked substantial organic engagement, particularly on Instagram, which garnered an average of 600+ engagements per post, with hundreds of heartfelt comments across the series expressing inspiration and a commitment to more open communication about HIV. Viewers were not just watching; they were moved, motivated to share and inspired to share more openly. As one comment said, “Huge props for creatively highlighting how important the doctor-patient relationship is for positive outcomes.”
To further reach healthcare providers, the campaign's paid media component, which is still ongoing, drove more than 600,000 video views and nearly 30% video view rate in its first of three waves, significantly outperforming cost-per-view benchmarks across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube.
This effort has laid the groundwork for further paid campaign efforts and tangible resources that are helping facilitate these crucial conversations, including the recently launched online resource hub viivhealthcare.com/hivconversations.
