Hairdressers Against AIDS Launches

On Wednesday some 500 hairdressers from across the country are trading in their shears for red ribbon-themed accessories and flipcams to pound the pavement in support of the U.S. launch of Hairdressers Against AIDS, a global campaign sponsored by the L'Oreal Foundation in partnership with UNESCO and the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. The initiative, which began in South Africa in 2001, uses the universal bond between hairdressers and their clients throughout a multibillion-dollar industry to promote dialogue about HIV prevention in nearly 30 countries in every region of the world, including China, Russia, Brazil, France, the U.K., and Indonesia.

Streaming videos and PSAs in Times Square, in taxis, and on the campaign’s website and Facebook page represent the beginnings of an estimated $1 million effort that will also rely on trade shows, advertising, and educational materials to spark 110 million conversations about HIV/AIDS in the United States in 2011. The initiative will tap some 500,000 hairdressers in the L'Oreal network who speak to 20 million clients per week.
Sponsors call it perhaps the largest HIV/AIDS mobilization campaign in U.S. history.