In time for World AIDS Day (Dec. 1), Biopharma giant Gilead is telling community stories about a shared vision of a world without HIV.

Bensimon Byrne, Gilead’s global AOR partner, developed the strategy, creative, and the global media buy for “The Together Campaign,” targeting nine international markets, Canada included.

Joseph Bonnici, Bensimon Byrne’s chief creative officer for Tadiem, tells strategy the activation of the program is led by two videos, one showcasing activist organization, Afrique Arc-En-Ciel Paris Ile-de-France, and the other, the Cairns Sexual Health Service in Australia.

Both groups aim to meet communities where they are, both physically and culturally, in the case of Afrique Arc-En-Ciel Paris, the Parisian LGBTQIA+ Ballroom nightclub scene, and with Cairns Sexual Health Service, barbershops.

Afrique Arc-En-Ciel Paris’s mission is to address gaps in support disproportionately impacting Parisian sub-Saharan African and Caribbean migrant populations, while through Cairns Sexual Health Service’s barbershop project, the group looks to make educational inroads with young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men disproportionately affected by HIV.

As Bonnici explains, it is about tapping social networks to organize event and outreach opportunities for an engaged audience to access HIV support and resources.

Afrique Arc-En-Ciel Paris founder, Ariel Jean-Urbain, shared his vision with Gilead to offer testing in the Ballroom scene, to which the pharmaceutical brand immediately saw the potential for a culturally rooted HIV prevention and management strategy.

“The Together Campaign” from Gilead aims to shine a light on heroes like Jean-Urbain and Dr. Darren Russell, director of Cairns Sexual Health Service, who are doing work within their communities to help prevent, educate and treat HIV in innovative ways. Earlier this year, Gilead profiled The Dr. Peter Centre, a pioneering holistic-based HIV treatment and care facility in Vancouver.

The campaign’s stories can be found on the Gilead HIV Together website.

“We have an always on campaign supported by the hero stories that aim to drive awareness in extending Gilead’s global vision,” Bonnici says.

The media buy is supported through social, programmatic, trade and search. To date, the media campaign has surpassed all objectives for the year with 52M impressions and 200% of planned impressions.

Bensimon Byrne’s relationship with the pharmaceutical giant began in 2021, when the shop worked with Gilead Canada to help create more awareness for Canadians when it comes to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PreP) choices.

“From there our relationship grew to a global scale to work with Gilead Global and Gilead Public Affairs US,” Bonnici says.

The agency has previously worked with Toronto specialty hospital Casey House, recently showing the horrors of HIV stigma. Bonnici says its relationship with the organization in the last six years has provided the agency with a foundation of knowledge about the many nuances of trying to end the HIV epidemic.