These ads were strategically placed at Milwaukee bus shelters in areas with the highest teen pregnancy rates to get teens to think about how their lives will change if they have a baby. The effort is a part of Milwaukee’s long-running teen pregnancy prevention effort.
Milwaukee Public School students did a double take on their first day of school as they waited at Milwaukee area bus stops. Fake “scratch and sniff” dirty diaper bus shelter ads were placed around the central city to warn teens of the burdens of teen pregnancy. Upon closer inspection, teens found copy that reads, “This ad doesn’t really stink, but the consequences of teen pregnancy sure do.” The campaign is part of a seven-year community effort to combat teen pregnancy in Milwaukee by deglamorizing the 30-year old problem.
How do you fix a 30-year societal problem that no one wants to discuss or hear about. You start by making the issue impossible to ignore. That’s what BVK volunteers did when they launched an outdoor campaign in Milwaukee, featuring pictures of teen pregnant boys. The campaign drew widespread media attention and later was used by the City of Chicago where the same campaign generated over a billion media impressions and national news outlets around the world talked about it. The effort was the first step in what has become a 7-year effort that has helped reduce teen pregnancy in Milwaukee by over 56%.
It may be the most surprising and aggressive online teen pregnancy prevention message Serve has ever launched. And it has gotten teens all over the city going online and on social networking sites to find out what it’s all about. But the movie promotion for the seemingly real, teen suspense thriller, called 2028 is nothing but a hoax to get teens to stop and hear a message warning them about the harsh realities of getting pregnant as a teen. To promote the giant ruse on teens, Serve created fake movie trailers, billboards and bus shelters. Launched bogus Facebook pages. Did fake promotions partnering with Milwaukee radio stations and even put out a free music soundtrack featuring Milwaukee artists. All to drive teens to watch the movie online where they then watched a full movie trailer for the movie 2028-which revealed that “if you get pregnant as a teen today, the next 18 years could be the hardest years of your life.” The fake movie not only created a stir in Milwaukee, but gained national attention through the blogosphere among teens and adults across the country.
In an effort to reduce teen pregnancy in Milwaukee, BVK volunteers launched a unique and interactive campaign, called Sex Myths. The heavily digital and social effort was aimed at inspiring conversations between parents and youth about sex by showing them the kind of scary information that is being spread when they’re not involved. The heavily digital and social media-based campaign, features an interactive YouTube quiz and website, heavy social media promotion on Facebook and Twitter. Users were encouraged to share the videos and visit GetTheSexFacts.com for more information on the campaign. More than 125,000 parents and teens viewed the “Sex Myths” videos on Youtube. The campaign is a part of 7-year effort that has helped lead to an historic 56% drop in the teen birth rate in Milwaukee.
