Take Care Down There: The New Planned Parenthood Campaign
Planned Parenthood has a new education campaign for teenagers called Take Care Down There. At least one blog has questioned whether the site is cheesy - or more to the point whether it is too cheesy for teenagers. And yes, it’s highly cheesy. Here are two cheesy things I noticed about the site:
- The lines are clean and the colors bright and the whole site is somewhat reminiscent of that penguin game the kiddies like so much.
- The characters in the videos are wearing gender-color-coded t-shirts and are somewhat reminiscent of the Apple/PC Apple ads with their white backdrops and amusing banter.
In other words, Planned Parenthood has made this campaign fun rather that stressful. But I think that’s good. There are links to more in-depth, useful information. And through the videos, teenagers are getting exposed some good, basic information about safe sex. It’s not a sex-ed class, and it’s not comprehensive. But imitating a classroom environment is not how the Internet works, and teenagers know that.
Basically, I’m delighted that Planned Parenthood has gone out and gotten people who know what they’re doing on-line and in advertising to create a funny and engaging site to work as a portal to greater information. I think teenagers will be much more likely to visit this site and to recommend it to their friends than something like this one, and it will stick in their minds so they’ll know where to come back when they have pressing questions. Then they’ll be ready to make their way through Teenwire’s denser, more informative body of information.
So go take a look, and report back: What do you think of the Take Care Down There campaign?
May 13th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I watched all the videos on “Take Care Down There.” I agree with Karen that it’s simplistic, but direct. I like that there is no judgment coming from the “teacher” character; the impression is “sex is fine, just be safe.” I LOVED the song! Reminds me of a masturbation rap song I heard a number of times about 10 years ago, written and performed by two young women. It was great and I wish I knew how to get ahold of them to see if they’ve published it on the web anywhere. It would be perfect for the new PP site. Thanks, Karen, for letting us know about this new site.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
pretty funny stuff
i think i’ll show it to my kids
they’ll just scream (with laughter too). the annoying “teacher” guy is a fixture of their worlds and approaches them in the same pseudo-cool fashion most of their teachers do - so they will recognise the archetype immediately
but they’ll also probably watch all of the videos - because they are the right kind of cheesy funny