Creative Agency: Ignite Health
Created by Irvine-CA-based Ignite Health, Live with It debuted in the fall of 2005 and follows a cast of fictional characters living with HIV/AIDS. Told in three to five minute episodic broadband videos, the unfolding serial drama follows the characters, who were inspired by real-life stories culled from blogs, online communities and other resources, as they cope with their diagnoses, confront their emotions and struggle with personal relationships. It also provides a powerful emotional experience-- one that sufferers can relate to. To attract visitors and to encourage compliance, Live With It offers HIV sufferers not only medical advice and treatment options, but also a sense of community and shared experience as well.
The overriding objective of Live with It was to be relevant and to tell personal stories that have a realistic and even brutally honest tone. The characters go beyond the stereotypical and include a cultural cross section from all walks of life-- single, married, male and female. Each episode's compelling storyline is crafted by credentialed Hollywood screenwriters and brought to life in a limited animation style (hand drawn artwork, painted backgrounds and video playback similar to Saturday morning cartoons or anime). An original score further dramatizes the story, creating the must-see viewing experience tailored for the growing HIV/AIDS community gathering online.
To date, the response to episode one has been phenomenal. The site receives traffic from over 130 countries and thousands of movie views each month. The agency is also seeing visitors staying at the site for longer periods of time, leaving personal reviews and engaging increasingly in discussion about Live with It in active social networks/HIV communities. Since the series began, Live with It has also been the most-emailed page on TheBody.com, one of the largest and most trafficked HIV websites in the world.
Since its launch, the site has won top honors and awards from numerous industry groups. It is also available as a podcast download for portable devices such as iPods and PlayStation portable.
-- Fabio Gratton, chief innovation officer, Ignite Health
The videos, which are delivered in a number of sizes and made available for download in a huge cache of video formats, speak to members of this community in a very honest way: “This is how it is. Live with It.” Besides the sincerity of the episodes, the use of MySpace profiles as an integrated approach to presenting the material is a great way of bringing this message beyond the site.
What I like here is that all the offerings are on one page. The expanding mouse-over menus can be a little spasmodic, but on one page you can seamlessly watch videos, rate and review the content, read other users’ reviews, send the videos to a friend, download the videos in six different formats, "meet" the characters and buy merchandise. The layout takes a little time to get used to, but it works.
One suggestion I have is letting users know what the schedule is for the new episodes. The episodes that aren’t released yet simply say “coming soon,” but since both of the episodes touched on the fact many people with HIV don’t want to acknowledge that they’re living with the disease, I would guess that some infected users won’t submit their emails to receive info about future episodes.
Also, for users who are learning to live with HIV, more integration with other online and offline opportunities might be a great addition and useful tool. These could include links to other online community groups and discussion boards or a zip-code locator for finding local HIV discussion groups or medical clinics.
Overall, this is an entertaining, well-programmed site with a noteworthy design that helps in the continuing effort to put a face on HIV and AIDS.
-- Bradley Werner, director of marketing, The Fifth Network
This site deals with a topic that likely won’t play well in Peoria, but it’s a topic and approach that I really applaud. As marketers, we spend our lives trying to come up with new and engaging ways to start and continue sales conversations with customers. We create taglines and messaging platforms. We develop ad campaigns. We research and aggregate constituencies of interest. All this is great and textbook best-practice kind of stuff.
But LiveWithIt.com gets right to the point and deals with the gut-wrenching realities of HIV. While the creators may have done all of the typical marketing 101 stuff in the background, the final viewer experience is refreshingly anti-marketing. There’s no set of choices they’re trying to direct us through. No sales conversion at the end of the tunnel. It’s a unique way to educate, inform, inspire and activate viewers to literally Live with It. It’s episodic storytelling using animation and online distribution, and it works. I love the use of animation because it makes it easier for me to relate to each character and not have to be distracted by questionable casting selections or the quality of set design. The focus is on the narrative and driving message-- Live with It. It’s subtle but it resonates, and that’s not easy to do.
My only suggestion would be to provide a short intro/exposition to set the stage and tell me what I’m going to see, whet my appetite and/or (if I’m in Peoria) prepare me for what I’m about to see. This may help to increase view times for those that don’t yet have a keen interest or understanding for the subject matter.
Overall this is a very well done piece that deserves kudos for its execution, as well as its innovative approach to health education.
-- Matt Wright, director, online video strategy, HowStuffWorks