This hotline is really HOT

ST May 29, 2005

This hotline is really HOT
400,000 people have called sultry Nikki - and got more than what they bargained for
By Jeremy Au Yong

NIKKI, a voluptuous brunette with a sexy voice, receives about three calls to her hotline every minute.

'You like my voice?' she asks her callers, 'Do you think it's...sexy?'

Many men apparently do. Since the hotline was started in February, there have been nearly 400,000 calls.

Is she the world's busiest phone sex worker?

No, Nikki is a character created for the latest Aids awareness campaign from Action For Aids (AFA).

AFA placed ads in bus stops, coffee shops and the classified pages of various newspapers tempting people with sexy pictures and slogans like 'you'll call again and again' or 'want to know me?' There were even little stickers in public toilets that read: 'Very sexy girl, Want XXX, 6333-1411.'

Similar ads were made for their Mandarin hotline 6333-1211.

Those who called were greeted by sultry-sounding Nikki, who said she wanted to meet them and be their friend. But before she did, she wanted to know if they would wear a condom.

Depending on the choice made, callers would be either praised or reprimanded. Either way, the call ends with a serious message: 'Aids kills. Protect yourself. Use a condom.'

Said AFA executive director Paul Toh: 'We wanted something different. We thought about why some of the past campaigns didn't work. Fear didn't work. Boring messages didn't work.'

To come up with an effective concept, AFA worked with advertising agency Foote Cone & Belding, which engaged a model for the pictures and a voice actress to be Nikki. AFA would have been happy with 3,000 calls - no one expected this kind of response.

Said Mr Toh: 'Such good campaigns come along only once in a while. We want to see what kind of mileage we can get from it.'

The two Nikkis are not available for interviews because AFA said it does not want the models to distract people from the message.

The original campaign was due to run only till the end of last month. Now it is being extended to October and eight phone lines have been added to the initial two to handle the volume of calls.

This is not the first time an AFA ad has raised eyebrows. In 1991, it released print ads that featured pictures of condoms with slogans like 'cover your lover' and 'it can make any man more attractive'. The following year it launched a campaign along the same vein, showing a male model in big rubber Phua Chu Kang boots and the slogan 'Boys always look better in rubber'.

Its bold ads have got people talking, particularly the latest ads with Nikki.

Said Mr Zachary Sze-To, 29, an IT consultant who called the hotline out of curiosity: 'It's a very interesting way to deliver a message. I actually called back to find out what happened if I chose 'No'.'

But Mr David Lee, 22, a student at the National University of Singapore, questioned whether it has reached its intended audience. He said: 'Someone who is really looking for Nikki might get angry and put down the phone before hearing the message.'

Sociologist Tan Ern Ser thinks most callers would get the message, regardless of why they called. 'Since they have gone through the trouble of calling in, with certain expectations, I believe they will linger a little longer and in the process unknowingly become a captive audience.'

A HIV patient, who wanted to be known only as Anthony, also gave Nikki the thumbs-up: 'It's certainly different from normal Aids awareness messages. It brings home the fact that Aids can happen to anyone, even someone as beautiful as Nikki.'