While HIV treatment continues to advance, the stigma against the disease remains as prevalent as ever. To ignite a conversation around stigma, we used one of the most popular shows of all time: Friends. We pulled scenes from across the series and reordered them, telling a completely new narrative around stigma. Our new episode uses characters that have been entertainment staples for years, but with one major twist: one of them is HIV+.

Casey House is a world class HIV hospital that focuses on compassionate treatment, seeing the person behind the disease as an individual. Even as treatments get better, the stigma around HIV continues. To help make a better world for everyone living with HIV, one of their organizational goals is to eliminate the stigma around the disease. We had to show the devastating effects in a way that would make people take notice, shining a light on the stigma and building empathy towards people living with HIV.

We conducted a survey and found that 65 million North Americans feel they would be shunned by friends, family and co-workers if they revealed they were HIV+. Knowing this, we decided to do the unthinkable: create a new episode of one of the most popular television shows of all time, with an HIV+ twist. Introducing: Losing Friends. We searched through 236 episodes of Friends to find scenes that could be reedited to create new episodes about HIV stigma and transmission. We hired voice impersonators from across North America and lookalikes for each actor so we could replace dialogue and faces through innovative audio and post production. The result was new episodes showing the devastating impacts of HIV stigma.

HIV has become a wholly treatable disease. With regular medication, someone with HIV could live a full life with little to no health complications. The hardest part of living with HIV, is the stigma. From losing friendships to workplace strife, disclosing your HIV status could mean the end of your relationship or employment. Casey House is committed to Smashing the Stigma around HIV in bold and attention-grabbing ways, putting us face to face with stigma and asking us to question how accepting we are of HIV+ people.

We launched Losing Friends worldwide on SmashStigma.ca and with a private media screening featuring a panel of HIV+ influencers discussing the impact of stigma in their lives. We drove traffic to the site through social, mass, and earned media. To show the episode was more than fiction, HIV+ influencers bravely shared their stories on the website, bringing a personal and human viewpoint to HIV stigma.

The launch of Losing Friends became a global conversation within 24 hours. With over 200 stories, 10 million social impressions, and 200 million media impressions within the first day of launch. After viewing our episode, 88% of people felt more empathetic to those who live with HIV.