Enigma Wraps Everyday Objects in Red Tape For Hep-B Myth-Busting Campaign

The Burnet Institute and Hepatitis B Voices Australia have partnered with indie agency Enigma on a campaign employing adhesive red tape bearing the message "You Can't Get Hep B Here" to dismantle generations of misinformation about hepatitis B.

For Australia’s Chinese and Vietnamese communities, misinformation about hepatitis B can cause stigma and shame for people living with the virus. Though the virus is transmitted only through contact with infected blood and sexual fluids, for generations there have been misconceptions that it can be spread through casual contact - simple everyday things like holding hands, hugging or sharing food and utensils.

Consequently, people living with hepatitis B have experienced unwarranted social prejudice as friends and even family avoid physical contact and exclude them from social gatherings and the simple everyday pleasure of sharing a meal together. As a result, although hepatitis B treatment is readily available, safe and highly effective, many people avoid diagnosis and care, and, in Australia, three people die from hepatitis B every day.

To dispel the damaging myths at the heart of this problem, Burnet Institute - one of Australia's leading independent medical research and public health institutes - and Hepatitis B Voices Australia (a community-first-led organisation governed by people living with and affected by the virus) partnered with indie creative and media agency Enigma to launch a national campaign with a singular powerful message: “You Can’t Get Hep B Here”. 

The campaign was co-designed with community members to ensure the messaging is culturally relevant and grounded in the lived experience of people with hepatitis B.

The cornerstone of the creative is an adhesive red tape, designed and created by the agency, bearing the campaign’s message in simplified Chinese, Vietnamese, and English.

The tape, purposely made to make people stop, pause and reassess, was community tested for cultural impact and relevance, with the colour red holding different meanings for different audiences - from warning to hope or celebration.

Enigma creative director and head of art, Aldo Ferretto, said, “Our design borrows from the conventional visual language of hazard warning, then deliberately turns it on its head, effectively ‘warning’ our audience that there’s nothing to worry about. The message is beautifully simply clear: the myths aren’t true; you can’t get Hep B here.”

The Enigma team meticulously hand-wrapped a suite of familiar everyday objects with the tape. Photographer Andy Lewis photographed the wrapped objects in studio - providing the visual assets that roll out across the campaign’s website and OOH and digital media executions.

 An installation at Chatswood Mall featured a fully tape-wrapped dining table and chairs set up ready for a meal, inviting the public to sit down and engage with its message. “This idea is all the more powerful when it enters the physical world,” Aldo said.

“Making things with our hands is part of our creative culture at Enigma, and the public’s response to this work is testament to the value of crafting bespoke tangible experiences of this kind.”

Associate professor Jessica Howell is a senior research fellow and at the Burnet Institute, and said the campaign responds to a critical gap in community knowledge.

"For more than 50 years, the Burnet Institute has been working to understand, prevent and ultimately eliminate hepatitis B. We know that fear is one of the biggest obstacles, and when hepatitis B feels threatening or embarrassing, people avoid information altogether.”

Hepatitis B Voices Australia, the only community-first-led organisation in Australia completely governed by people living with and affected by hepatitis B, ensures that the people most affected by the condition are central to the national response.

HBVA spokesperson Lien Tran said the community's involvement in shaping this campaign made a real difference.

"For a long time, misinformation has caused so much unnecessary shame and isolation for people living with hepatitis B," Lien said.

"This campaign speaks the truth in our languages, in our voices, and it reflects what our communities need to hear."