Lessons Learned The Kaiser Family Foundation Partners with MTV to Reach Young People in the "Fight for Your Rights" Campaign
The Partner Partnership Overview Impact Lessons Learned: The Benefits of Collaboration More on Kaiser's Program on Public Health and Partnerships

MTV: Music Television is the number one cable network among 12- to 24-year-olds and can be seen in more than 342 million households worldwide, including 77 million in the United States.

The Kaiser Family Foundation works with leading networks, popular television shows and magazines to reach young people with information about public health, specifically sexual health. As part of this strategy, the Foundation partnered with MTV: Music Television in 1997 to launch an extensive public education campaign to inform young people about sexual health issues, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In April, the campaign was elevated by the network to its highest priority pro-social initiative under the “Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself” brand.

The single-largest campaign of its kind, "Be Safe / Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself" includes:

• Full-length programming
• Targeted public service advertisements (PSAs)
• Online content on www.fightforyourrights.mtv.com
• Original research
• Community outreach
• Free resources and referral service, including direct links to HIV/STD hotlines.
  

Since its launch in 1997, some 800,000 young people have called a special toll-free hotline established by the Foundation as part of its ongoing campaign with MTV to receive additional information—It’s Your (Sex) Life, a free sexual health guide—or to be connected directly with HIV/STD experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or to their local Planned Parenthood. 

The various special programs developed under the partnership – that have addressed issues ranging from the basic facts on sexual health to the link between risky sexual behavior and substance use – have been seen by an estimated 50 million viewers based on Nielsen television ratings. The some three dozen-plus public service messages produced under the partnership have garnered placement on some of the networks highest rated shows and continue to receive heavy rotation.

A number of evaluative efforts have been undertaken to study the impact of the MTV/Kaiser campaign, including: a random-sample survey of callers to the toll-free hotline; a “call-out” survey of MTV viewers; and a special evaluation of the Sex in the 90s: Fact or Fiction program, developed in conjunction with the partnership, including dial-testing of the show and written questionnaires and focus groups with viewers.

In the MTV “call-out” survey (conducted in March 1999), more young people named sexual health as the “most important” issue for people their age (35%) than chose any other issue offered, including education (29%), drug or alcohol abuse (22%), or political participation (2%). 

Of those who watched the Sex in the 90s show and completed written questionnaires nine out of ten viewers said they personally learned new information from the show, and nearly eight out of ten would like to see more shows like that on MTV. 

According to an evaluation conducted in 1998 among a randomly-selected sample of callers to the hotline promoted in the public service messages developed by MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly nine out of ten learned something new from the booklet distributed through the campaign. The information also sparked action: as many as seven in ten talked with a friend or partner because of something they read in the booklet; and, close to one in five were tested for AIDS or another STD (18%) or visited a health care provider (16%) as a direct result. 

We work with entertainment media because of the power it has to reach young people in a voice that is credible to them. According to surveys conducted by the Foundation, half of 12 to 17 year olds report learning about HIV/AIDS from television; 48 percent of teen girls cite popular magazines as a resource on topics like sexual decision-making and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs); and entertainment media ranks third after school and friends as a general source of information on sexual health for teens. 

Recognizing that no one media outlet can reach enough young people with enough force to make a difference, we have sought to build relationships with a wide and diverse set of media, focusing on those most popular with youth today, from the “tween” years through puberty and adolescence to young adulthood, as well as those with a more targeted reach, such as media aimed specifically at African Americans or Latinos. We also use a range of approaches to get our information to young people, including: joint public service messages; special programming and coverage; customized Web content; and free informational materials and referral services provided through our toll-free hotlines and Web sites. 

Because our messages are amplified and reinforced across multiple outlets and through multiple means, we hope that the impact is more powerful than the sum of the audiences of our media partners. A sixteen year old girl who is channel surfing may see one of our many public service messages on MTV, BET, UPN, or one of our other partners about a pressing sexual health issues; later when she is on the Internet visiting her favorite Web sites, she can find answers to questions like “How you know if you have an STD?;” and as she flips through the latest issue of seventeen she may come across our latest article about how HIV is affecting her generation. Our work with entertainment media now includes some half dozen ongoing partnerships with leading media organizations and several other periodic ones that collective attempt to reach the broadest possible audience.

Last updated: September 2002