Feature Story

JYJ do the Love Always sign on the launch date of the campaign.
Credit: Korean Herald/H.Park

Newly appointed UNAIDS Regional Goodwill Ambassadors, Korean pop group JYJ joined UNAIDS to launch a social media campaign, that has taken the Twitter world by storm.

Inspired by JYJ hit song lyrics, the “LoveAlways” campaign encouraged fans to download a specially designed Twibbon heart icon to their Twitter profile, and to tweet messages to break down HIV-related stigma and discrimination such as: “Be the one—stop HIV discrimination with JYJ and UNAIDS. Show you LoveAlways.”

The campaign ran from 26-30 August 2011, coinciding with the 10^th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific which was held in Busan, Republic of Korea and where JYJ were officially announced as UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassadors on the opening day.

At the launch of the campaign, the three members of JYJ—Jae joong, Yuchun and Junsu—all tweeted messages to their personal Twitter accounts, grabbing the interest of their collective 1.4 million followers on Twitter.

In the six days of the campaign, more than 32 500 fans showed their support via the Twibbon application; followers of the UNAIDS Twitter account nearly doubled.

So rapidly successful was the campaign that the Twibbon site itself both tweeted and posted on Facebook that the LoveAlways campaign was one of their “fastest-ever growing campaigns.” This message went out to some 1.1 million people on Facebook and Twitter, and LoveAlways has been featured on the Twibbon site since.

“The impact of this campaign with JYJ’s involvement has been just amazing,” said Steve Kraus, Director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Asia and Pacific. “The reach JYJ have is extremely important in supporting our global goals of ending stigma and discrimination and we are delighted to have JYJ as our Goodwill Ambassadors for the region.”

The LoveAlways campaign has seen JYJ fans being creative and motivated through their tweets and messages. Many have pledged solid support to JYJ and UNAIDS to help eliminate HIV-related stigma and discrimination and encourage other young people to be more aware about HIV.

JYJ underlined their appreciation for their fan’s commitment: “We want to thank our fans for their great support for this campaign—they are showing that they LoveAlways and are ready to stop HIV discrimination. Their action makes us proud,” said band member Jae joong. “We hope our fans will continue to support us as we work on important AIDS issues with UNAIDS. This is a great start to our work and we are looking forward to more activities where we can speak out about AIDS,” he added.