#1130 2024 · New Zealand Herpes Foundation / Motion Sickness · Public health / behaviour change
To fight herpes stigma NZ declared itself the best place in the world to have it
the problem
Herpes is common (80% of NZers catch it) yet shameful, so most never test or disclose; fear ads failed to dent stigma
background
In New Zealand about 80% of people catch herpes at some point, and by age 38 a third carry genital herpes — yet NZ ranked second-highest of ten countries for fear of stigmatisation in the campaign's own pre-launch survey. That fear is the real problem: the virus is common and mostly harmless, but shame stops people getting tested, telling partners, or getting help, so the stigma quietly feeds transmission.
The standard public-health play is a fear-angled PSA: warn of the risks, then reassure that 'it's actually really common, nothing to be ashamed of'. It fails precisely because the shame is a social emotion, not an information gap. The audience already half-knows the facts; the moment an authority figure tells them their diagnosis is 'no big deal', the message itself re-confirms that they are marked. Telling a shamed person not to feel ashamed does not work, and scaring people away from a stigma-adjacent topic makes it worse.
what everyone would do
The textbook moves all fail. A fear-angled PSA scares people away from a topic already loaded with dread. A direct 'it's really common, nothing to be ashamed of' contradicts the very feeling it addresses — the moment a health authority tells a person their diagnosis is no big deal, the message itself re-marks them. And an information campaign is pointless because the gap was never knowledge; everyone already half-knew herpes is common.
what they saw
Shame is a status emotion, not a fact. NZHF gave people a reward instead: every free lesson a citizen completed lifted their country on a live stigma leaderboard, so undone shame became a visible act of national pride
the move
The New Zealand Herpes Foundation, with agency Motion Sickness, declared New Zealand 'the best place in the world to have herpes' and turned de-stigmatisation into a game. Unimpeachably respectable Kiwis — Sir Ashley Bloomfield, the doctor who led NZ through its pandemic response, and All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry — starred in filmed 'enrolment lessons' for a free viral 'Herpes Destigmatisation Course'. A live 'Herpes Stigma Index' ranked countries by stigma, and every completed lesson visibly lifted New Zealand's rank; on a $28,705 budget it was rolled out in three phases from an open letter and TikTok launch to doctor's-office, gym, cinema and campus ads, then to a celebratory 'Aotearoa officially the best place to have herpes'.
why it works
The stigma lived in fear of being judged, so the behaviour to move was not belief but disclosure-testing. Fear messaging attacks the belief ('it's common') and leaves the fear intact; the leaderboard attacks the fear by attaching a social payoff — status, patriotism, belonging — to the very act shame punished. Each completed lesson, made public by the rising rank, gave the participants social proof that defying the taboo was safe and celebrated, so the act of taking a lesson stopped being an admission of infection and became a contribution to a national cause. The credibility came from Bloomfield and Henry: borrowing the authority of the country's most trusted figures let the joke normalise rather than trivialise, because laughing with the respected is proof the topic is not poison. And the mechanic was self-reinforcing — the more people took lessons, the higher NZ climbed, the more reason the next onlooker had to join, which is why #1 on the leaderboard followed within eight weeks.
the payoff
NZ hit #1 on the stigma leaderboard in 8 weeks — 2,593% ROI on a $28.7K budget (self-reported); won Grand Effie and Cannes GP for Good
where it breaks
It fails when the stigma is genuinely dangerous rather than merely shaming — normalising a deadly or contagious condition reads as reckless and destroys trust. It needs trusted, uncontested authority figures, so it sputters in polarised cultures or where the endorsers are themselves discredited. The leaderboard only pays off if the audience believes the score and can watch it move; a gamey or debunked index supplies no status. And it dies if the mockery is aimed at the sufferer instead of the stigma — the moment the campaign reads as a tourism or PR stunt laughing at patients, the shame it set out to remove is simply re-attached.
what came after
The leaderboard is the durable artefact: it turned a shame-behaviour (getting help) into something public, countable and shareable. The mechanism — reward the rebellion instead of fighting the belief — is the transferable principle.
references
- [1]1News (TVNZ Re: News) — Why people shouldn't feel ashamed about having herpes (launch + mechanism + stigma index)1News.co.nz, 20241news.co.nz
- [2]NZ Marketing Magazine — Excellence in Healthcare/Beauty Marketing Strategy winner 2025: New Zealand Herpes Foundation (mechanism + effectiveness figures)NZ Marketing Magazine, 2025nzmarketingmag.co.nz
Widely retold, only partly documented. Filed as hearsay.