Apretude and its TV ad

[Thad1527]

Apretude is the brand name for a new injectable medicine for PREP, to prevent HIV. I found out about it from this TV commercial:

APRETUDE TV Spot, 'Another Way'

Check out APRETUDE's 90 second TV commercial, 'Another Way' from the Rx: Immune Disease industry. Keep an eye on this page to learn about the songs, characters, and celebrities appearing in this TV commercial. Share it with friends, then discover more great TV commercials on...

www.ispot.tv

Yes, this is about the gayest commercial I've ever seen. And you won't believe where I saw it.

On ABC. Regular broadcast ABC.

At 4:15 in the afternoon.

During the baseball playoff game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals.

WHAT??!!!

I'm glad the message is getting out. I know many LGBT folks are baseball fans; the Phillies sold out of their Pride Night special tickets with giveaway this season. (I went but did not get the gift.)

But, oh! Was this ad targeted?

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Thank you for posting this. An interesting ad if there ever was one.

 

[cabinfever]

WOW! I wouldn't expect that.

 

[NotHardUp1]

That is indeed an interesting development in broadcasting. It should be noted that you are in the Northeast, and that the commercial has a disproportionate amount of the time featuring people of color, and obviously targeting urban audiences.

Assuming the station aired it intentionally during the game, it may well represent a good faith attempt by the station ownership to promote PREP and safe sex messaging. If it happened through some lower level manager making the call, or even a technician, it may represent an effort to rock the boat, or even a mistake.

Sadly, these ads normally are lumped with late night or wee hours programming in less urban markets, and seen by very few indeed. The scene with two men sizing up one another as strangers on the subway platform pretty much guarantees suburban and rural markets would hide this ad in the least viewed time slots.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Want to be that hefty colored transgender(?) with the straight hair!

 

[rareboy]

I get it and I don't get it.

I understand it has a target demo....but the implication it leaves is that HIV is really only overwhelmingly an LGBTQ concern and leaves a 'Them' and 'Us' aftertaste for me.

Straight men and women who are also highly sexually active with random partners would have provided more of a 'we're all in this together' to protect against the spread of HIV.

But hopefully it made some of the down low viewers fucking anyone and everyone without protection who were watching the game take notice.

 

[Latimer]

I wonder what percentage these days of AIDS sufferers are straight non-drug users. The number has always been very low. "We're all in this together" may very well have been propaganda to create a sense of alarm to increase support for government action to find treatments and a cure. It would be interesting to know what the percentage of PREP users is straight. I'd venture that given the potential hazards of PREP it must be minuscule.

I assume this was targeted to minority gays because they now disproportionately suffer from AIDS. That most of the men pictured were stereotypically gay was a mistake. It has been speculated that a reason why minorities are disproportionately affected by AIDS is that many minority men don't identify as gay. but nonetheless have gay sex.

 

[rareboy]

^ Hence the comment about reaching the down-low players out there.