Do It London – Making HIV Prevention a Shared Conversation

Do It London is the flagship campaign of the London HIV Prevention Programme (LHPP) — a partnership funded by all 32 boroughs and the City of London Corporation, united behind one ambition: zero new HIV transmissions by 2030.

But despite the scale of the mission, HIV messaging had become confined to niche spaces, awareness days and hyper‑targeted activity. This well‑intentioned approach had an unintended effect: it kept HIV out of public life, reinforcing stigma and limiting relevance.

The Brief

Our objective? To make HIV prevention feel like a shared civic issue. To reach higher‑risk audiences without isolating them. To work across every London borough on a £500k public‑sector budget, while navigating platform restrictions around protected characteristics.

We needed to bring HIV back into the public square — visible, confident and for everyone.

What We Did

We recognised that while stigma thrives in silence, normalisation thrives in visibility.

HIV prevention would only become relevant when it stopped behaving like a niche concern and started behaving like a mainstream conversation.

So we built a campaign designed to break expectations of where HIV messaging ‘belongs’.

Instead of attaching messages to specific communities or calendar moments, Do It London showed up boldly in shared spaces — signalling legitimacy, inclusion and collective responsibility.

A one‑to‑many media system delivered the message across the entire city:

• London Evening Standard front‑page strip A permission‑setting moment that placed HIV prevention alongside the biggest stories in the capital.

• High‑impact OOH across Greater London Bus supersides, D48s, D6s and flyposting made HIV prevention unavoidable — a message for everyone, not just “at‑risk” groups.

• Digital audio and podcasts Private, reflective environments that bridged public visibility with personal action.

• Paid social Cost‑efficient reach and engagement, using relatable, culturally grounded creative to spark conversation.

• Paid search Captured curiosity and directed people to trusted information, reducing misinformation.

• Tips & Tests activation A culturally embedded PR moment hosted in a Black‑owned nail salon in Southwark. By reframing HIV prevention as self‑care, not clinical intervention, it generated national press, influencer content and broadcast coverage, reinforcing the idea that HIV prevention belongs in everyday life.