What is Durexhibit all about?

Durexhibit is a poster competition, open to anyone between the ages of 16 and 24.

We want you to design a poster which will persuade people your age to use a condom, rather than take risks with unprotected sex.

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Why bother?

Sexual health in the UK has deteriorated significantly over the past 12 years1:

  • The incidence of chlamydia has increased by 300%
  • Gonorrhoea is up by 200%
  • HIV levels are up by 300%

Sexually transmitted infections have consequences, ranging from a bit of discomfort, through infertility, to death (if an HIV infection develops into full blown AIDS).

Meanwhile, in spite of being the focus of government campaigns since the late 1990s, the rate of pregnancies among under-18s is only declining very slowly2. Unplanned pregnancy can have many unhappy consequences. Young mothers – compared to those giving birth when aged over 24 – are three times more likely to suffer post-natal depression, have a 60% higher chance of their baby dying in infancy and, by the time they are 30, are 22% more likely to be living in poverty3.

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What can Durexhibit achieve?

Only condoms can protect against both unplanned pregnancy and STIs, so if you design a poster with a message which persuades people to protect themselves by using a condom you could, single-handedly:

  • Cut the rate of STI infections
  • Reduce the incidence of unplanned pregnancies

…quite an achievement!

How to enter

Step 1: Read the competition rules

This is really important. Posters which break the rules will not make it onto the Durexhibit site, so before you start work please take a few minutes to check what you can and particularly what you cannot do.

Step 2: Do your research

To persuade people to change their behaviour you need to understand why they do what they do. So before you get started some research is a good idea.

A lot of useful background information about the problem of STIs and teenage pregnancy is available on the internet, at sites such as:

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Talk to your friends too. What are their attitudes? If they take risks with their sexual health what would make them think twice?

Step 3: Start designing

Got some ideas? Then it’s time to start designing. But first take a look at the design guidelines. (Be careful – posters must be in portrait, not landscape, format to be uploaded on Durexhibit.) You can enter as many posters as you like.

Step 4: Check it out

Think you’ve designed a winner? Before you upload it to the site check it out with your friends. Do they understand the point you are making? Would anything make it clearer? What sort of impact does it have?

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Step 5: Upload your poster

So, you’re ready to upload. One last thing before you do. When you put your poster on the site you have the chance to explain your thinking when you designed it – in about 100 words. These will be displayed beside your poster and could influence how people vote, so give some thought to what you want to say.

Then make sure your file is in the right format (see the design guidelines), come back to the site, click on Enter on the menu bar and follow the instructions on screen.

Step 6: Tell your friends

Now it’s down to what other people think of your poster. For the next 30 days people can vote on whether they think your idea would make people think twice about risking unprotected sex. So tell your friends where your poster is and encourage them to vote.

Step 7: Tell lots of other people

Of course your friends aren’t the only ones who can vote, so if you want to let other people in your college know about Durexhibit, you can download and print out a poster.

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How is the winner chosen?

  • Initial assessment
    First of all your poster will undergo a brief initial assessment to make sure it complies with the competition rules. If your poster is rejected you will be e-mailed with a short explanation of why, giving you an opportunity to rethink and resubmit your idea. Otherwise within 24 hours – or a little longer at weekends – your poster will be up on the site.
  • On-line voting and comments
    Now visitors to the site can rate your poster’s potential impact. They will be asked to vote on the basis of how effective the poster is likely to be, not just on how creative it is. They will also be able to enter comments, so keep checking out the site (you can respond to comments if you want to).

    Each poster will be available for voting for 30 days, after which it will be added to the poster archive.

    The site will be publicised but you can help too by passing information to your friends. There will be a facility on the site which you can use to let your friends know about your poster and the other posters on the site. And they can alert their friends too.

    The first 100 people who recruit 10 new voters to visit the site will receive a Durex pleasure pack.
  • Vote on the shortlist
    At the end of January a shortlist of the 20 highest scoring entries will be put up on the Durexhibit website for two weeks, from which the final overall winner will be chosen by on-line voting.

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What can I win?

The winner will receive

£500 cash plus £200 of Durex products

And your work will get lots of publicity:

  • In Durex company publicity materials
  • On the Durex website, www.durex.co.uk
  • Through a viral e-mail campaign

Your poster might be used in a Durex campaign too.

The other 19 shortlisted entrants will win:

£100 of Durex products

Their work will also be featured on the Durex website.

So remember…

Before you start designing:

Now start designing…

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References

  • Health Protection Agency www.hpa.org.uk
  • Office for National Statistics and Teenage Pregnancy Unit, 2007
  • Ermisch J. Does a ‘teen birth’ have longer term impacts on the mother? Suggestive evidence from the British Household Panel Study ISER Working Papers no. 2003-32; Institute for Social and Economic Research 2003