Remember when you used to think Mountain Dew lowered your sperm count? Kids used to believe that at one point in middle school, at least. A new public service announcement campaign in Milwaukee is directly addressing issues like that, and it's pretty great.
The videos use the Twitter trending topic #SexMyths, and come from Serve Marketing's new PSA series for the United Way of Greater Milwaukee.
In each video, kids are seen discussing word-of-mouth sex myths, such as "if you do jumping jacks after you have sex you can't get pregnant,""you can't get pregnant in a hot tub," or "only gay people get HIV." Viewers are then asked if the myth is true or false, and can click on the answer they prefer in the video. A streetwise young woman hanging out by a chain-link fence then delivers the correct answer, and that answer in turn leads in to another video with another myth.
As a piece of adtech — interactive Q&A, chained videos — it's impressive. It's also entertaining.
The ads have alternate edits aimed at parents, where the punchline is "Want to hear more crazy stuff your kids are saying about sex?"On getthesexfacts.com, parents can download a PDF looking at what kids these days are up to.
The ads are mainly intended for a black and Latino audience, and the actors are primarily from those demographics. In 2006, Milwaukee discovered it had the second-highest teen pregnancy rate among large American cities. The Milwaukee Courier noted that the city's ensuing response has led to a historically low teen birth rate, and that they are hoping to reduce it by another 46 percent by 2015.