Brightly coloured flyers from the 'Your Sexual Health Matters campaign' on a pile of condoms.
Changing mockups of various poster designs for the Derbyshire sexual health campaign.

The mission

A campaign to raise awareness of sexual health services in Derbyshire.

The NHS in Derbyshire commissioned Social Change to undertake research with residents and use these insights to design a county-wide campaign to raise awareness of sexual health services in Derbyshire, particularly with hard to reach groups, such as the homeless, sex workers, people who use drugs and alcohol, men who have sex with men (MSM) and young people. 

The campaign guide for the 'Your Sexual Health Matters' campaign.

The research

Exploring issues and challenges with looking after our sexual health.

We reviewed national and local data to explore the issues and challenges preventing people from looking after their sexual health and we looked at attendance at sexual health services and the behaviour of not practicing safe sex. The review led to quantitative and qualitative research exploring residents’ awareness, attitudes and behaviours to safe sex and the 'appeal' of sexual health services. 

An animation for our Derbyshire sexual health campaign, using the campaign poster artwork.
A pile of pink 'just say it or just wear it' flyers from the 'Your Sexual Health Matters' campaign.

The campaign

It's not just young people who have sex.

We discovered that whilst heterosexual residents are accessing services in great numbers. National data and local population data showed that 64% of the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) population in Derbyshire are currently accessing services, compared to only 2% of the local heterosexual population.

This told us that the LGB community is supported by sexual health services which was great news. We wanted to ensure that this campaign continued to support the LGB population – including reaching out to the transsexual community (LGBT) but decided with this campaign to take a different creative approach.

We felt that it was time to ensure that communication and campaign messages did not target people based on sexuality because the message should be ‘sex is sex’. We therefore wanted to design an inclusive campaign where messages and imagery talks to all, regardless of sexuality, gender, ethnicity or age.

The impact.

The popular ‘Jiggle Wiggle’ for over 35s received national coverage, appearing on Loose Women, Lorraine and Have I Got News for You.

The campaign went viral appearing on national TV and radio
2000 condoms sent to food banks and charities in Derbyshire
57,469 People reached in 1 month
63.7% Increase in online testing kit orders in 1 month
170,000 reached in Derbyshire at the end of the campaign
over 15 million people reached in total
200x the initial budget earned in media value