Imagine a public health message about sexual health that doesn’t rely on fear or guilt, but instead radiates confidence and hope. Picture a bus shelter poster where a young Floridian proudly declares, “I protect myself,” inviting others to do the same, not out of fear, but out of empowerment. This vision isn’t fantasy; it’s the new face of STI outreach as pioneered by the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) in recent years. By shifting to uplifting, inclusive messaging rooted in empathy and personal agency, FDOH’s campaigns have engaged communities at unprecedented levels and even fostered genuine behavior change.

In this post, we’ll explore how moving away from shame-heavy tactics toward behavior change marketing can transform how we talk about STIs. We’ll delve into real-world case studies – including Florida’s “Know Your HIV Status” initiative (with its “I Protect Myself” campaign) and a unique collaboration with CAN Community Health – to see how sex-positive storytelling, cultural relevance, and first-person voices can inspire action. Along the way, we’ll highlight strategies like transculturation, community input, and testimonial messaging, and share the compelling results (from soaring website visits to surging engagement) that prove the impact of this approach. The goal is to provide public health professionals, marketers, and educators with an engaging narrative and strategic lessons on talking about STIs without stigma – and with confidence.

Breaking the Fear Cycle: Why Shame-Based Messaging Falls Short

For decades, many STI and HIV prevention campaigns leaned on scare tactics – grim statistics, dire warnings, and images meant to shock people into “safe” behavior. The intention was to spur risk avoidance, but mounting evidence shows that fear-based, stigmatizing messages can backfire. Instead of motivating people, shame and negativity often drive them away. Research in Florida found that sex-negative messaging actually decreased the likelihood that individuals would engage in healthy behaviors like HIV testing, starting PrEP, or staying in care. In communities disproportionately affected (such as Black and Hispanic populations in Florida), traditional fear appeals were alienating the very people they aimed to help, eroding trust, and reducing message effectiveness. The data and community feedback were clear: a new approach was needed.

Florida’s health officials realized that to truly reach people, they had to change the conversation. Instead of framing STI prevention as avoiding something terrible, they began framing it as pursuing something positive. This meant embracing a sex-positive mindset – openly talking about sexual health in affirming, non-judgmental ways – and placing the audience member in the hero’s role in the story. The underlying philosophy was simple: encourage healthy behaviors by showing how they empower people to live better lives, not just avoid bad outcomes. In other words, it was time to stop saying “Fear this disease,” and start saying “You’ve got this – here’s how caring for your sexual health helps you thrive.”

From Data to Empathy: A Behavior Change Marketing Approach

To turn this philosophy into practice, FDOH adopted a behavior change marketing model grounded in research, empathy, and ongoing measurement. Rather than assuming what messages would work, they listened to the audience at every step. Epidemiological data pinpointed who was most at risk and where. Psychographic research sheds light on attitudes, beliefs, and cultural values. And crucially, community input was sought to shape the campaigns. Through focus groups, surveys, and workshops with community members, FDOH gained insight into people’s real fears, hopes, and language preferences. This collaboration helped ensure the messaging felt authentic, that people would see themselves in the campaign and feel respect rather than judgment.

Several key principles guided this new outreach paradigm:

• Transculturation over Translation: Simply translating an English slogan into Spanish or Creole wasn’t enough. FDOH focused on transculturation – adapting messages to fit each culture’s nuances and values. As one official noted, “Transculturation is as important if not more important than translation”. For example, Haitian Creole materials used expressions and contexts that resonate with Haitian family traditions, while Spanish materials reflected the idioms and tone of Florida’s diverse Latinx communities. This ensured campaigns “reached at-risk populations with language that accurately represented their communities”, making people feel seen and respected.
  
• Community Voices and Authenticity: From the outset, the campaigns were co-created with input from the communities they served. Focus group participants and local stakeholders helped craft affirming language tailored to each audience. Real community members often became the faces and voices of the campaign. By featuring relatable people (not generic stock models) and true stories, the outreach felt “real, grounded, and true to who people are”. This authenticity meant that when someone in the target audience saw an ad, they could think, “That person could be me” – a powerful connection that can overcome skepticism.
  
• Empowerment and Personal Agency: The messaging deliberately moved away from lecturing about risks,and instead highlighted personal reasons for action. Every ad answered the question of why someone would choose to get tested, use condoms, or start PrEP – and the answers were framed as expressions of self-love, autonomy, and caring for others. By using first-person statements like “I protect myself…”, the campaign essentially invited the audience to identify with the statement and internalize it. This subtle shift placed the individual in control: it’s not a public health authority saying “protect yourself or else,” but an individual proudly proclaiming “,I take charge of my health because it lets me live the life I want.” The approach tapped into aspirational themes – showing that taking care of your sexual health isn’t just about avoiding illness, it’s about being able to live a joyful, confident life.
  
• Consistent, Multi-Channel Engagement: To meet people where they are, FDOH deployed its campaigns across a wide range of channels – but always with a consistent story and tone. This meant targeted Facebook and Instagram posts, dedicated websites, mobile ads, on-the-ground events, bus shelter posters, radio spots, and more, all reinforcing the same uplifting messages. Whether someone encountered the campaign at a nightclub, on their phone, or at a community center, the experience was unified and recognizable. This integrated strategy ensured high visibility and multiple touchpoints per person, so that hearing a positive sexual health message became a frequent norm, not a one-off occurrence.
  
• Data and Iteration: True to the “data to action” mantra, each campaign was monitored closely. Metrics like impressions, click-through rates, social media interactions, and website traffic were tracked in real time. What worked was amplified; what didn’t was tweaked. This agile, evidence-based approach not only proved the success of the campaigns to stakeholders (by delivering hard numbers well above industry benchmarks) but ilso created a feedback loop to keep refining the messaging. In essence, data wasn’t just collected – it was acted on, ensuring the campaign stayed effective and relevant.
  

With these principles in place, Florida’s health communicators set out to reinvent their STI prevention messaging. The result was a series of groundbreaking campaigns that demonstrated how empathetic, empowering marketing can drive real change. Let’s look at two of those campaigns – “I Protect Myself” and “I Can” – to see how they brought this approach to life.

Case Study: Florida’s “Know Your HIV Status” Initiative – The “I Protect Myself” Campaign

One of the earliest and most impactful examples of Florida’s new approach was the Know Your HIV Status campaign, centered around the slogan “I Protect Myself.” Launched in 2017 as part of a statewide HIV prevention initiative, “I Protect Myself” marked a radical departure from past public health messages. (Previous campaigns had used commands like “Protect Yourself,” which felt like a warning or scolding. Simply shifting that phrase to the first person – “I protect myself” – transformed the tone into a personal pledge, centered on individual agency.)

Audience-Centric Design: FDOH knew exactly who it needed to reach. The campaign focused on communities bearing the heaviest HIV burden: Black and Hispanic men who have sex with men, Black heterosexual women, and Haitian-American communities in Florida. These groups often face high stigma around HIV and STIs, so the messaging had to be especially relatable and respectful. Materials were produced in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole to speak to people in their preferred language. FDOH even localized the outreach, concentrating media buys and posters in six priority regions (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville) where these populations live and socialize. By tailoring placement and language, the campaign met people on their turf – whether that was an urban transit stop in Miami or a community center in Jacksonville.

Message and Tone: The heart of the campaign was empowerment. The simple mantra “I Protect Myself” invited each viewer to complete the thought: I protect myself… why? The ads helped fill in those blanks with positive, personal reasons. For example, one poster showed a smiling woman beside the quote, “I protect myself because I want to take care of my son.” Another featured a young man with the caption, “I protect myself because I love myself.” By showcasing people proudly sharing why they take charge of their sexual health, the campaign normalized behaviors like testing and PrEP as acts of self-care and love, not fear or panic. Even the topics that can be uncomfortable were reframed in an approachable way: instead of highlighting HIV as a deadly threat, the messaging emphasized that staying healthy lets you pursue your dreams and take care of those you love. It acknowledged sexuality as a healthy part of life and talked about prevention without taboo or euphemism. Notably, there were no scare statistics or finger-wagging in these ads – no mention of death tolls or shaming of anyone’s lifestyle. The tone was sex-positive and affirming, making it clear that everyone deserves to feel safe and confident in caring for their sexual health.

Figure: Empowering messaging in action – A Florida HIV campaign bus wrap displays a community member’s quote: “I protect myself because I want to take care of my son.” Campaign materials like this used first-person testimonials in English (and Spanish translations, as seen on the bus front) to center the individual’s own reasons for prevention. This inclusive, family-positive framing helped audiences connect STI prevention with their personal hopes and responsibilities, rather than with fear or shame.

Storytelling and Cultural Relevance: To ensure the “I Protect Myself” message hit home, FDOH invested heavily in community feedback and cultural tailoring. During the development, focus groups with members of each target demographic were conducted. Participants reacted to draft slogans, images, and narratives, allowing the team to refine the creative elements based on what felt genuine or off-base. This is where the concept of transculturation became vital. Rather than direct translation, campaign messages were culturally adapted. For instance, the Haitian Creole slogan wasn’t just a literal translation of “I protect myself”; it was phrased in a way that resonated with Haitian values around family and faith. The Spanish versions likewise used colloquial language that various Latinx groups in Florida would find familiar. By listening to each community, the campaign writers crafted messaging that felt familiar and encouraging, not clinical or patronizing. Every poster and video was reviewed to ensure it showed diverse faces and stories from those communities, so that a young Latino man in Miami or a middle-aged Black woman in Jacksonville could see someone like themselves in the campaign’s imagery and say, “This is for people like me”. This level of representation was key to stripping away shame; it signaled that taking care of your sexual health is normal and celebrated for everyone, no matter who you are.

Multi-Channel Impact: The “I Protect Myself” campaign blanketed both online and offline spaces with its upbeat message. On Facebook and Instagram, FDOH shared short videos and graphics of individuals finishing the sentence “I protect myself…” with their personal motivations. The campaign’s website (aptly named KnowYourHIVStatus.com) offered visitors real-life testimonials and an easy way to find nearby testing locations anonymously. Out in the community, bus shelter ads and posters in nightlife areas carried bold headlines like “I Protect Myself, I Protect My Community,” next to vibrant photos of people laughing, dancing, or hugging loved ones. At health fairs and Pride events, campaign booths handed out materials with the same branding, and outreach workers wore T-shirts with empowering slogans rather than cautionary warnings. This 360-degree approach ensured that wherever the audience turned, they encountered a consistent, sex-positive narrative about STI prevention. The repetition and visibility made the message memorable – and importantly, it allowed community outreach staff to echo that positive language in one-on-one conversations. Instead of delivering stark warnings, they could engage people by asking, “How do you protect yourself?”, sparking dialogue about testing or condoms in a non-judgmental way. Every component, from social media to bus wraps, worked in concert to reinforce a new norm: talking about HIV and STIs as a point of pride and proactive choice, not shame.

Results – Empowerment Drives Engagement: The “I Protect Myself” campaign did more than make people feel good; it delivered measurable impact that far outpaced previous efforts. FDOH meticulously tracked the outcomes, and the numbers tell a striking story of success:

• Skyrocketing Engagement: Digital ads saw a 370% increase in click-through rates compared to earlier campaigns, achieving CTRs in the 5.0–5.5% range, well above the ~1% industry benchmark. In plain terms, people weren’t just noticing the ads; they were clicking to learn more at several times the usual rate, indicating the empowering message was truly resonating and spurring action.
  
• Explosive Web Traffic: The call-to-action “Know your status” worked. Visits to the campaign website’s information and testing pages jumped over 2,000% versus the prior year’s campaign. That’s an increase from under 5,000 annual visits to more than 133,500+ visits – a phenomenal surge. This suggests the campaign tapped into a huge unmet demand: thousands of people who hadn’t engaged before were now actively seeking out sexual health resources, likely because the stigma barrier had been lowered.
  
• Social Media Growth: On FDOH’s social platforms, the audience grew by 83% year-over-year, with each person engaging 67% more (likes, shares, comments) during the campaign period. Achieving this kind of sustained growth on social media, where health content often struggles, indicated that the content strategy of relatable stories and uplifting tips was keeping users not only interested but eager to spread the word. In fact, many campaign posts were organically shared peer-to-peer, a sign that people felt proud to associate with the message.
  

Perhaps most telling was the qualitative feedback. Community organizations reported that people who saw “I Protect Myself” felt “seen, not shamed,” and that they appreciated seeing folks like them depicted positively. Instead of whispers and denial, conversations about HIV started popping up in community meetings and on social feeds in a more open, hopeful tone. This kind of cultural shift is hard to measure, but the peer-to-peer sharing and word-of-mouth buzz hinted that the campaign had struck a chord. In minority communities that often greeted health campaigns with skepticism (after years of feeling targeted or blamed), seeing friends and neighbors voluntarily passing along the campaign’s posters or hashtags was a huge win. It signaled a restoration of trust: people saw the health department not as the messenger of doom, but as a partner who celebrates their well-being.

The bottom line? By ditching fear in favor of empowerment, Florida’s campaign made huge strides. As one summary lesson put it: when FDOH pivoted to sex-positive messaging, “every metric of engagement jumped dramatically”. Clicks and site visits weren’t just vanity numbers – each represented an individual making an active choice to learn their status or access prevention tools. The data proved that an empathetic, uplifting approach could spur far more action than scare tactics ever did.

Case Study: “I Can” – Partnership with CAN Community Health for Greater Impact

After the success of “I Protect Myself,” FDOH saw an opportunity to broaden its reach even further by partnering with community organizations. One standout collaboration was with CAN Community Health, a nonprofit providing HIV/STI services through clinics across Florida. Together with their marketing agency, FDOH and CAN launched a statewide awareness push informally dubbed the “I Can” campaign – a name that cleverly echoed the organization’s acronym while emphasizing ability and optimism (“I can take control of my health”). This partnership campaign was built on the foundation of empowerment, but took it into new territory: linking people directly to care and treatment resources in their communities.

Joining Forces for Community Care: CAN Community Health specializes in HIV/AIDS and hepatitis care, offering testing, treatment, PrEP, and supportive services in underserved areas. By teaming up, FDOH and CAN aimed to not only raise awareness of prevention, but also to drive new patients to CAN’s clinics, turning awareness into action by making sure those who were motivated had somewhere to go for help. In essence, FDOH provided the broad platform and data-driven strategy, while CAN provided on-the-ground credibility and services. This model exemplified a smart public health approach: amplify the message at the state level, and connect it to local, trusted providers who can catch the people that the messaging motivates.

“I Can” – Message and Tactics: The “I Can” campaign inherited the DNA of “I Protect Myself” – it was still all about celebration, education, and empowerment, not fear. But it extended the conversation from just “know your status” to “take the next step and get care.” The tone remained upbeat: campaign materials talked about the possibilities that come with knowing your status and staying healthy, rather than the consequences of getting sick. In fact, the team explicitly adopted the ethos of approaching from “a place of empowerment, celebration and education, not fear”.

To personalize these messages, testimonial storytelling took center stage. By 2019, FDOH and partners had refined the first-person tactic even further. “I protect myself” evolved into an open invitation for others to share their own “I…” statements. Community members – including CAN’s patients and advocates – were featured in ads and videos, completing the phrase in ways that reflected their lives. Some examples: “I get tested so I can stay healthy for my daughter.” “I take PrEP so I can enjoy every moment.” These heartfelt testimonials highlighted the personal motivations (family, joy, love) behind health actions, framing things like testing or taking PrEP as enablers of a full life, not burdens. The phrase “I Can” worked cleverly here: each person’s statement both nodded to the CAN organization and affirmed their own ability to act (“I can… [protect myself, care for my family, etc.]”). This dual meaning reinforced the campaign identity and made the messaging feel empowering on multiple levels.

As with the earlier campaign, transcultural inclusion was paramount. All materials were produced in English, Spanish, and Creole, with careful tweaks for each cultural context. The faces in the campaign spanned different ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds, mirroring Florida’s diverse populations served by CAN’s clinics. Whether someone was a younger Latino man or an older Black woman, they could encounter an “I Can” story that spoke to their experience. By maintaining this inclusivity, the campaign made sure no audience felt left out or secondary.

Community Input and Trust: A noteworthy aspect of this partnership was how it helped build trust at the community level. CAN’s involvement meant the campaign messages were often delivered by figures people already knew – local clinic staff, community health workers, peer educators. FDOH also held behavior change workshops and training for these partners, aligning everyone on the sex-positive, stigma-free approach. This had a multiplying effect: as community partners learned to communicate in less stigmatizing ways, community members noticed the difference and responded with greater trust. The very act of collaborating with a community-based provider like CAN sent a message that the health department was serious about meeting people where they are. Over time, this helped normalize the empowering language beyond just the ads. Counselors in clinics started talking to clients using the same positive framing (“We’re here to help you live your healthiest life” rather than “If you don’t do X, you’re at risk”). Such consistency reinforced the campaign’s impact and made it more sustainable: it wasn’t just a marketing veneer, but a genuine shift in how people were being engaged on sexual health.

Amplified Reach, Continued Success: While specific metrics for the “I Can” collaboration were tracked as part of the ongoing campaign, the overall trend was clear – the momentum from “I Protect Myself” continued. Awareness of CAN’s services grew in the target markets, as evidenced by increased foot traffic and inquiries at their clinics (according to internal reports). And the broader engagement metrics (website visits, social media interactions) remained high as the campaign messages evolved to include treatment and care. In essence, the partnership helped turn the surge in awareness into tangible connections to care. By 2021, the Florida campaign messaging had expanded to cover the full continuum of care (from testing to PrEP to treatment with U=U messaging), all under the same positive umbrella. The ability to sustain and broaden the campaign’s focus without losing its core tone is a testament to how well the audience-first, stigma-free approach resonated.

The CAN collaboration demonstrated that empowering messaging can be scaled and adapted to new goals (like patient acquisition) while still keeping the audience feeling uplifted. It underscored a key lesson: when you build a campaign on empathy and respect, partners will want to join you, and communities will walk with you. Together, FDOH and CAN showed that talking about HIV or STIs can be a conversation about hope and health, woven directly into the fabric of community care.

Key Takeaways for Stigma-Free Sexual Health Marketing

Moving from fear-based messaging to an empowering, human-centered approach isn’t just a feel-good exercise – it produces real results. Florida’s experience offers lessons that any public health professional or health marketer can apply when crafting communications about STIs or sexual health:

• Ditch the Doom – Emphasize Empowerment: Scare tactics might grab attention, but empowerment holds attention. Florida’s campaigns proved that when messages invited people in rather than issuing warnings, engagement skyrocketed. By framing health behaviors as positive choices (e.g., “Knowing my status lets me live my best life”), campaigns can inspire action instead of avoidance. Lesson: Flip the script – highlight the benefits and personal agency in STI prevention, and people will respond in droves.
  
• Meet Your Audience Where They Are (Culturally and Literally): One-size-fits-all messaging leaves many behind. Craft messages with your audience, not just for them. Through transculturation and community input, Florida made different groups feel truly seen in the campaigns. This cultural resonance led to people sharing the messages organically and trusting the source. And by delivering the content in the languages, neighborhoods, and channels people use daily, the outreach felt like a natural part of the community. Lesson: Invest the time to understand and adapt to your audience’s culture and media habits – the trust and engagement you gain will be worth it.
  
• Let the People Tell the Story: Nothing is more persuasive than hearing someone like you talk about a challeng,– and how they overcame it. Using testimonial storytelling and first-person narratives gave Florida’s campaigns a relatable, non-preachy voice. When a viewer sees “I get tested so I can be there for my family,” it personalizes the abstract idea of testing and ties it to values anyone can relate to. These authentic stories of real motivations help remove stigma; they show that taking care of sexual health is a normal, even admirable part of life. Lesson: Feature real voices and faces. Empower your audience to drive the narrative, and others will follow their example.
  
• Consistency and Positivity Build Momentum: A key to Florida’s success was the tight alignment of message and tone across all touchpoints. From a Facebook post to a health fair booth, everything reinforced a positive, inclusive theme. This consistency made the message stick and ensured that once people got on board, they kept hearing encouragement rather than mixed signals. Over time, the positive language even permeated partner organizations and community interactions, creating a unified front. Lesson: Once you establish an empowering message, amplify it everywhere and keep the tone steady. It takes repetition and reinforcement to normalize a stigma-free narrative around STIs.
  
• Measure, Learn, Adapt: Finally, Florida’s campaigns were never “set and forget.” Continuous data tracking and feedback allowed for nimble adjustments and proof of impact. When something worked (e.g., a particular image or phrasing driving clicks), they doubled down on it. When something didn’t workt, they tweaked the approach. This not only improved effectiveness but also helped sell the approach to stakeholders by showing undeniable gains in engagement and public response. Lesson: Bring a test-and-learn mindset. Let your audience show you what resonates through their behavior, and be ready to evolve your campaign accordingly. Success in removing stigma can be measured, and every metric is a person whose life you touched.
  

Join the Movement: Talking About STIs with Confidence and Care

It’s time to rethink risk and rewrite the narrative around sexual health. The pioneering efforts in Florida show that when we speak about STIs without shame, when we choose empathy over fear, and empowerment over stigma, people don’t tune out. They lean in. They take pride in protecting themselves. They seek out information and services. They even encourage friends to do the same. In short, they change their behavior for the better, which is the ultimate goal of any public health campaign.

Public health professionals, marketers, and health educators everywhere can take a page from these success stories. We can all strive to create campaigns that celebrate the audience, respect cultural identities, and inspire personal agency. The result is messaging that not only informs, but motivates – turning awareness into action and data into impact. If you’re ready to move beyond fear-based messaging and foster real change in your community, we invite you to continue the conversation. Learn more about implementing behavior change strategies and stigma-free marketing at evokhealthcaremarketing.com – and join us in helping everyone talk about STIs and sexual health with confidence, compassion, and hope.