Beast fronts for AIDS Trust
A nationally televised fund-raising campaign featuring controversial radio and TV personality Stan Zemanek was launched yesterday aimed at galvanising broad community action against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
According to the campaign’s organisers, the AIDS Trust of Australia, the Just A Dollar A Day advertisements will kick-start a series of direct response operations aimed at creating a sustained focus on the epidemic within Australia, as well as appealing for donations through a national hotline.
The 90-second commercial, which went to air in regional NSW yesterday and will be seen in Sydney within the next two weeks, features six groups of openly HIV-positive people, including a gay couple, a middle-aged woman, a youth (pictured), and a mother who has transmitted the virus to her child.
The campaign will concentrate on the broad issues of poverty, discrimination and loss, with Zemanek appealing to viewers not to be complacent about the continued need to combat prejudice.
The theory I guess behind using Stan Zemanek for this campaign was to increase the awareness of the issue for a wider mainstream audience, AIDS Trust fundraising manager Glenn Horder told Sydney Star Observer.
We are looking at a wide demographic, while also being conscientious and sensitive to the HIV-positive community and the gay and lesbian community -“ that’s why the advertisement features such a variety of real daily situations.
The Trust advises that all donations pledged to the campaign will assist ongoing education, care and support programs designed by the Trust.
