| Some of the key questions facing HIV & AIDS specialists today are:
What should social marketing look like after three years? How can social
marketing best contribute to slowing and reversing the HIV & AIDS
epidemic? CARISMA includes essential research components at both the
country and regional levels to understand the impact of social
marketing.
An important component of building the total condom market is
measuring its growth. Social marketing sales are perhaps the easiest to
measure — social marketing organisations track sales to retail outlets
where condoms sold are a proxy for condoms used. But monitoring social
marketing sales may not reflect the total condom usage in the country;
commercial and free condom distribution may rise or fall with support to
a social marketing programme.
The CARISMA project is therefore working with all three sectors to
gather accurate sales and distribution data to measure the growth of the
total condom market. While data on free condom procurement is available
in all countries, consumer uptake is often more difficult to measure.
Tracking sales in the commercial sector is also proving difficult as
many Caribbean distributors regard the information as confidential
commercial intelligence, but CARISMA has devised a methodology for
ascertaining the necessary public health figures without disrupting the
private sector. The total condom market data can then be used to guide
future allocation of resources.
Equally important is knowing the impact of the behaviour change
interventions. CARISMA will also measure impact in of communications
across the region. Some of the results to be measured are on a
behavioural level such as condom use amongst particular target
audiences. Others help understand the role of social marketing such as
the relative impact of generic vs. branded communications and the equity
of access for a wide range of target audiences. |
