Macabre tombstones warn about AIDS

A Quebec AIDS awareness campaign starts this week just in time for World AIDS day. The campaign is created by Markatel, as was last years campaign, which depicted razor blades with silhouettes in the middle.

Macabre tombstones depicting couples engaged in heterosexual and gay sex, as well as injecting drugs, are featured in a campaign to warn that AIDS is still around. The posters, to go in bars and restaurant washrooms, were created for the Quebec Health Department.

from canada.com

hat tip to the CreativeGeneralist for discussing this on adlist.

The ads will appear through Feb. 9, 2004. Health department spokesperson Dominique Breton said, "We wanted to remind young people the threat of AIDS is still here," adding, "It's sad, but young people still associate AIDS with drug addicts, homosexuals or (with) certain ethnicity. They forget it can happen to them, too" (Sevunts, CanWest/National Post, 11/15).

Gilles DuSablon, vice president and creative director at Marketel, said that about one-third of HIV-positive Quebec residents are unaware of their HIV status. He added, "That's why the government has asked us to come up with a campaign to raise awareness about AIDS." Luc Gagnon, executive director of the AIDS support group Comité des Personnes Atteintes du VIH, said, "People don't talk about AIDS anymore," adding, "Today's young people between the ages 15 and 25 missed the big public awareness drive of the 1980s. For them, AIDS simply doesn't exist." Gagnon added that if the message in the ads "reaches people, hits them, that is what [is] important. Right now, there is a silence that is more dangerous than any issue of bad taste. The important issue is whether the campaign provokes a change of behavior" (Montreal Gazette, 11/15).