Examples of Campaigns - NHS

After looking through a few of my peers work I began to see a few of the same campaigns being brought up (sorry but I will be writing about some of these) however one that I have not noticed was the NHS 'Condom essential wear' campaign. The main reason why I have chosen this campaign was mainly because even though the campaign states 'adults' it is clearly aiming at young adults aka 'students'.

It seems though that the NHS has broken its boundaries and rather then sticking to its normal set site design its has created a site which I feel is appealing to a young audience eye. Using deep/dark colours that give out the impression of seduction and combining it with (also seductive) photography the general design clearly shows the audience what the site is about.


When browsing the site I can see that the NHS is strongly trying to get the 'safe sex' message across. I found that for a site that looked simple it had alot of information, every page I clicked on I would be greeted with another few pages, I feel that this could in some cases distract the user and they could possibly lose interest due to being overcrowded with pages and pages of information. On the other hand even though there is a vast amount of information the designers of the site have laid it out well, the main icon buttons are general questions that I think are the main questions that people want to know. When selected the user is given many different options on the chosen subject. The information is simple and to the point, what a student wants.

The Interactivity

Initially I thought that there was no interactivity but I was wrong. Rather then keeping to the facts NHS are trying to get the audience involved with simple applications like 'digg this' if the user signs up to this they get involved with another site (digg.com) providing them with different articles that other 'digg' users find interesting (a good way to spread info). The designers have also tried to get the users to send the website link to friends, keeping it simple all the user has to do is send fill in four boxes and the infor has been sent.

The main two pieces of interactivity however was a quiz and 'spread the word' movie.

The quiz was very simple having only three questions testing on your knowledge about 'safe sex' but when the user answers the questions it shows them stats on what others have answered when answering the questions. This could maybe give the user an idea on how much people really do know. I did not however manage to finish the quiz because it was very slow and I did not know what was going on, I ended up moving on so could this be a problem that some users have?

I found the 'spread the word' movie campaign very amusing and was not expecting this at all. Spread the word or as its called 'Private Dick Movie' is an application that the designers have created for the users to basically created a 70s porn film but with the use of protection. Some people will find this highly amusing and in my opinion this application could draw the users to the site because it is something different.

Overall I feel that this site for the NHS campaign is a successful one by breaking the boundaries it gives out a clear message to the audience, provides the information needed but also giving some comedy value with the interactivity pieces.