In August 2008, when www.condomcondom.org was launched by the BBC World Service Trust as part of its Condom Normalisation mass media campaign, it was primarily to showcase the campaign and enable people to download the ‘Condom a Cappella’ ringtone. Within the first six weeks, the website got over 3.5 million hits. As a benchmark, it took www.aidsmap.com three years to achieve the same figure and in its first month, the DFID’s www.aidsportal.org received 1/10th of the hit www.condomcondom.org received. It also saw over 200,000 ringtone downloads. Since then, the Trust’s work on HIV and AIDS has increased substantially. The BBC World Service Trust has been the creative agency for the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO). It works on three of NACO’s thematic areas, condoms, STIs (sexually transmitted infections) and blood safety. So it was time to relook at www.condomcondom.org in the context of showcasing all the work being done to promote ‘safer sex’. The site needed a revamp to widen its scope, make it more interactive, and bring it up to date.
