Underage sex. It's not fun.

We have been asked in class to design a campaign that will “change the world”. The campaign had to have an impact, make a change or have an effect on people or the target market and be about a social trend or issue.

I decided to look into underage teenage sexual activity and it’s consequences. I kept hearing stories in the media about 13 and 14 year old girls have babies, even 15 year olds in my own small home town. I wanted to look into this more and discover why teens this young were exploring sexual activities.

I wanted to also make teens in general more aware of the consequences of sex and unprotected sex.

I started by doing research into teen sex, sexually transmitted infections, unprotected sex and contraception and looking for statistics on this topic. I found many statistics including:
• About 28% of Australian teenagers may be infected with Chlamydia
• Most teenagers do not practice safe sex
• One in four teens have had sexual intercourse without using a condom
• More the 2/3 of all teens who have a baby wont graduate from high school

These statistics were slightly disturbing and I wanted to try and make the point that teen and underage sex was not cool, it was not fun and it can have a massive impact on your life.
I had an idea for a series of four magazine spreads two aimed at females aged 13-15 and two aimed at males of the same age group. I made mock-ups of these and came up with the slogan; Underage sex. It’s not fun. These mock-ups would be changed before the finished product but I just wanted to get my ideas out on paper.

I designed these spreads using colours and pictures that would appeal to my target market such as pink and purple and blue and green. I displayed the innocent picture on one page with a caption underneath of what they were doing for example “they are celebrating her 14th birthday” on the next page it would state a shocking fact such as “she has Chlamydia”. This was followed by a statistic and the slogan of the campaign.

I then printed of one of the mock-ups and produced it to a focus group. The focus group consisted of six people both female and male, aged from 13 to 15. I asked a series of questions including:
• Why do you think teenagers are having sex?
• Where do you get most of your information about sex?
• What do you know about Sexually Transmitted Infections?
• When do you feel is the right age and situation to have sex?

I then asked them questions about the mock-up magazine spread. What they liked about? What would they change? What was good and bad about it?

This was extremely helpful as I was able to gain an understanding of how my target market perceived sex. They thought people were starting to have sex at a younger age, such as 13. The group also thought there were many factors as to why teenagers and younger people were exploring sexual activity such as peer pressure, influence from television and media, wanting to feel older, wanting to feel cool and so they can brag to their friends.

None of these reasons were acceptable, underage sex never is. So I thought ok I’m going to make a difference and make teens realise that it isn’t fun, it’s not cool, what happens on T.V does not happen in real life and having sex wont make you any older then you are.

Taking the information I gained from research and my focus group I have started to work on how I can make the impact I want and make people realise the consequences of underage, unsafe sex.