Reaching out across Oklahoma for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
The Oklahoma State Health Department’s Sexual Health & Harm Reduction Service honored us with the responsibility to communicate the benefits of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program to those living with HIV across the state. Because Ryan White is not well-known to most Oklahomans, we personalized the program using his first name. In collaboration with Peak Media, digital ads, outdoor posters, online videos, radio spots, and even local influencers educated target audiences that “Ryan Can Help” them in a multitude of ways.
Ryan White contracted HIV through a blood transfusion when he was 13 years old in 1984. Battling fear-based discrimination at home in Indiana and around the country, he became an advocate for AIDS education. Four months after his death in 1990, Congress passed the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, establishing the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. The program provides outpatient care, treatment, and support services for more than 500,000 Americans living with HIV every year.
Thanks to a diverse, multichannel media strategy and a straightforward creative approach bolstered by the expertise of media planner, Kasey Simonich, photographer Simon Hurst and videographer Steve Jones, the “Ryan Can Help” campaign delivered over 19,000,000 impressions (3x the goal) and over 13,000 clicks (2.6x the goal). The campaign prioritized equitable geographic coverage, bilingual outreach, and authentic community engagement throughout Oklahoma.
The greatest impact the Ryan White Program campaign made on Robot House was our education regarding the state of modern HIV treatment. Ryan White was just a year younger than founder Brian Winkeler. In the 1980s, a positive HIV test was a fatal diagnosis. Thanks to the federal government investing in scientific research across the decades, current medication can not only help those living with HIV lead a healthy existence, it can also render HIV untransmittable. That’s a huge win for science that far too few know, so we felt empowered with this enormous responsibility to produce a campaign that can save lives with its message. It truly was an honor to help spread the word that “Ryan Can Help.”
