With Pleasure

Howard Brown Health, a Chicago-based healthcare provider, is renowned for its affirming and accessible patient care to all, rooted in LGBTQ liberation and human dignity. The organization offers a wide range of healthcare beyond STI prevention, including psychiatric and geriatric care.
Facing challenges like rising mpox and COVID-19 infections, Howard Brown partnered with HausCo to launch a targeted media campaign in June 2023. This campaign aimed to 1) celebrate Howard Brown’s critical role in inclusive healthcare, 2) encourage mpox vaccination among queer male Chicagoans, and 3) drive appointment sign-ups for holistic healthcare services to their South Side clinics – all while trying to stand out in the advertising clutter during Pride month.
HausCo created “With Pleasure,” a creative campaign rooted in queer sexual liberation and resource sharing, which helped to communicate to Chicagoans the critical resources Howard Brown has to offer. There were two core messaging strategies:
1. Pride-focused messaging aimed to increase general brand awareness, and motivate the LGBTQ+ community to get vaccinated for monkeypox.
2. Care-focused messaging was used to drive awareness of resources and encourage South Side residents to sign up for appointments.
HausCo developed a campaign kit for Howard Brown to use for the Chicago Pride Parade. From t-shirts to parade banners to out-of-home placements, “With Pleasure” was at the forefront of the discussion and significantly increased brand awareness. HausCo also ran a paid social campaign on Facebook/Instagram that targeted two audiences: a general city-wide LGBTQ+ interests audience and a South Side geo-targeted audience. Four creatives ran targeted to both audiences to test messaging type effectiveness and optimize subsequent campaigns.
The paid social campaign generated 1.8M impressions and 1.5K engagements, reaching over 963K individuals. Howard Brown noticed increased appointment sign-ups at South Side clinics during the campaign period. The campaign also provided valuable insights into messaging preferences, highlighting the effectiveness of care-centric messaging across all demographics. Notably, older audiences showed higher engagement with care-related content, signaling a greater interest in healthcare services. From this, Howard Brown successfully understood its target audiences and optimized its messaging in alignment with community needs.