As part of the first global outdoor advertising campaign ever conceived, Clear Channel will devote over US$5 million in advertising to an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign being conducted in conjunction with UNICEF.
The winning creative was launched this week simultaneously at functions in Johannesburg, New York and London by UNICEF celebrity ambassadors. The billboard advertisement will debut globally in translated versions from November.
Creative agency Bester Burke won the global competition run by Clear Channel and UNICEF to design an ad that would highlight the effects of HIV/AIDS on the world's children.
Paul Meyer, Global President of Clear Channel Outdoor, says: "The HIV/AIDS pandemic needs the world's attention. There is no more effective way to force people to take notice than with outdoor advertising and we can think of no better use of the world's most effective outdoor network. By forming this alliance with UNICEF we hope to donate our voice to the cause."
Macharia Kamau, UNICEF representative to South Africa says: "The HIV/AIDS pandemic is unravelling decades of progress for children, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Gains achieved in health and education through years of investment and development are being lost, not only across wide swathes of Africa, but increasingly across Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean.
"We hope that this global campaign so generously donated by Clear Channel will raise public awareness and direct people to the UNICEF website to donate."
Dr.Miriam Makeba, South Africa's Goodwill Ambassador to Africa says: "We need to stand up against the curse of AIDS which comes to suppress our children's spirit and their future and even attempts to deny them a parent's love. We also need to show the world the creative talent that grows in Africa of which the Bester Burke team are a wonderful example."
Across the globe an estimated 15 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. More than 2 million children are HIV positive and more than half a million children died in 2005 of AIDS related causes.
Barry Sayer, Chief Executive Officer of Clear Channel Independent says: "It is befitting that an advertising agency with its roots firmly planted in Africa, conceived the most appropriate creative execution to combat a scourge that has so concentrated its vicious attack on our continent.
"Clear Channel will promote the campaign free of charge throughout sub-Saharan Africa as its contribution to its parent company's international effort."
