Major billboard companies rejected the condom-clad banana image and accompanying slogan, but it thrived with enthusiastic support from independent agencies and press

AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s (AHF) Just Use It ad campaign – featuring a condom-clad banana, the slogan “Just Use It,” and the useacondom.com URL – is a finalist for the 2024 OBIE Awards, which have been rewarding the best in out-of-home advertising for more than 80 years.

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AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s (AHF) Just Use It ad campaign – featuring a condom-clad banana, the slogan “Just Use It,” and the useacondom.com URL – is a finalist for the 2024 OBIE Awards, which have been rewarding the best in out-of-home advertising for more than 80 years. This campaign is running in more than a dozen cities across the country; the billboard pictured is in New York City. (Photo: Business Wire)

Just Use It is recognized in the Public Service and Nonprofits category as AHF is the world’s largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit organization, providing cutting edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay. AHF currently has more than 1.9 million patients in 46 countries around the globe.

The Just Use It campaign debuted in August 2023 to promote condom use and ran in six central Los Angeles locations. Thanks to increased media attention and a strategic partnership with PJX Media, the Just Use It design found additional placement across the United States.

“We are honored to be recognized once again by the prestigious OBIE Awards for our out-of-home public health advertising,” said Jason Farmer, AHF’s Vice President of Marketing. “The fact that we were censored by the largest billboard companies in the country from running the artwork and were able to rely on independent billboard owners to get this important public health messaging out there makes it even more gratifying to be considered.”

AHF’s Feel the Burn? campaign won a Gold OBIE award in 2017, and AHF was an OBIE finalist with its #StandAgainstHate campaign in 2018.

The OBIE Awards bills itself as “the oldest and most prestigious honors for creative excellence in out of home (OOH) advertising design.”

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world’s largest HIV/AIDS healthcare organization, provides cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to more than 1.9 million individuals across 45 countries, including the U.S. and in Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region, and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, visit us online at AIDShealth.org, find us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and subscribe to our AHFter Hours podcast.

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