The Good Life Show: Making Health Fun, Simple and Achievable for Everyone

This Ugandan AFFORD Initiative is a five-year, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded programme that uses marketing approaches to improve health outcomes in HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning, and child health. To promote increased knowledge about these issues, the initiative formulated an educational game show called the Good Life Show. This 6-page case study explains how the Good Life Show reached more than 9 million Ugandans through multiple media that mutually reinforced the show's health messaging.

With longstanding, national HIV/AIDS communications, AFFORD found that many Ugandans had developed fatigue around health messaging. The initiative therefore used entertainment as a vehicle to distribute this type of messaging through an interactive game show in which couples competed for prizes. This game show tested couples' general knowledge on the week's health topic as well as their knowledge of each other. Each episode linked topics to related products and services. Early community pilots of the game helped to create a buzz around the show prior to its national launch.

The initiative then used multiple media channels to reach larger audiences with mutually reinforcing messaging. For example, recordings from the initiative's road show were used as part of call-in radio shows. The use of radio helped AFFORD double its audience size, overcoming the limitation inherent in using the medium of television, which retains a largely urban or semi-urban audience. As of the time of the document's drafting, the initiative was also planning to use community halls and mobile screening units to replay translated episodes of the show to rural audiences.

A telephone hotline was also set up to allow callers to answer a health question and give feedback on the show. Those who correctly answered questions were eligible to compete on the Good Life Show.

Media was complemented by engaging communities in experiential road shows. AFFORD conducted community-based road shows to provide an opportunity for small-group learning, followed by mobile screenings of The Good Life Show. The "four tent model" evolved as an educational tool for community fairs. Each tent focused on a specific health issue - HIV/AIDS, malaria prevention, child, and reproductive health. Each tent was dedicated to relevant health messages to specific audiences using participatory games and activities.

The case study outlines several reasons why this approach worked:

• The Good Life concept arose from evidence. AFFORD’s formative research revealed that Ugandans equated wellness with wealth rather than with physical health. Researchers also found that Ugandans mistrust many modern solutions to health problems. AFFORD designed the Good Life campaign with these popular attitudes in mind, demonstrating how prevention can save families money, and lead to a good life.
• The entertainment-education format breaks through health message fatigue. The exponential growth of media messages since the advent of AIDS in Uganda has created a savvy consumer audience with little patience for dry, clinical health promotion. The Good Life Show captures the audience using entertainment while building on established theories of behaviour change. The programme retains audience attention by awarding prizes to contestants on stage, to live audience members, as well as to viewers through a telephone hotline.
• Design a project for public understanding of science - 1001 ways to organise an outreach project, budgets, and fundraising.
• Multiple media channels expand the audience and reinforce key messages. Through television, radio, interactive road shows, a toll-free hotline, and supporting print materials, AFFORD has reached vast audiences with mutually reinforcing messages.

However, the initiative found that audiences had difficulty recalling health messaging promoted in the show. Challenges also arose in coordinating media pushes across mediums as well as developing clear yet entertaining health messaging. AFFORD also found that focused and sustained management was required to coordinate the show's creative team, which drew professionals from varied backgrounds.

Other lessons learned included the need to engage media outlets early in order to ensure they were capable gatekeepers and increase the possibility of sponsorship in some cases. However, sponsorship needed to be well managed. The initiative also said it found that targeting couples not only helped the Good Life Show promote effective communication between couples but also helped capture audience attention.