About the campaign

The campaign steering committee for Do you have what it takes? is composed of community representatives from organizations in eight Canadian cities (Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Halifax, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Toronto).   These organizations, led by AIDS Vancouver, worked together on two previous and highly successful cross-Canada campaigns:  Assumptions - How do you know what you know? (2004) and Gay Men Play Safe (2005).  By bringing together organizations from different regions of the country, these earlier campaigns fostered a strong sense of partnership, teamwork, and expertise that set the stage for the current campaign.  During a national meeting organized by AIDS Vancouver in 2006, all of the participating organizations expressed a strong interest in continuing their work together.

Action Séro Zéro, one of the participating organizations from Montreal, took the lead in developing the current campaign, once again in collaboration with partner organizations from across Canada working together to develop an innovative and creative social and community marketing effort on a national scale.  Teamwork and sustained joint action remain the key ingredients that have made the Do you have what it takes? campaign possible.

The development of Do you have what it takes? drew on what was learned from the previous campaigns led by AIDS Vancouver. Evaluations of each of these campaigns confirmed that they were widely appreciated by their target audience, who considered their messages to be important.  The current campaign aims to reinforce the prevention messages featured in previous campaigns by providing information that will enable men who have sex with men to identify the factors and situations that can lead them to take risks when they have sex.  Based on research findings as well as observations gathered by community groups, this new campaign is intended to be resolutely playful, sexy, and provocative …

In 2009,  Do you have what it takes? offers a new approach to prevention that takes into account the current challenges of preventing HIV/AIDS and other STIs among gay and bisexual men in Canada.