Controversial Ad Creates Headlines Nationwide

Asianweek.com, News Report

SAN FRANSISCO - The controversial message, “Which one deserves to die?”  featuring 10 smiling Asian American physicians, beauty queens, basketball players, family members and office workers has generated coast-to-coast buzz and headlines for the Hep B-free movement.

Prominent nationwide print, television, and radio news organizations have featured the provocative ad, which brings the issue of death caused by liver cancer to the forefront, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio, and PBS News Hour, as well as a number of ethnic Bay Area media outlets.

Sunny Teo, executive creative director of DAE Advertising, and the brainchild behind the campaign, says it was vital to have such a shocking message to alert the public that 1 in 10 Asian and Pacific Islanders is chronically infected with Hepatitis B, compared to 1 in 1,000 non-Asians.

The campaign appeared in local ethnic and mainstream newspapers, billboards, and bus transit boards in May 2010 in honor of the 15th Anniversary of National Hepatitis Awareness Month and Asian Pacific Heritage Month. It addressed the biggest reason for the Hep B epidemic --  general lack of awareness about the disease, especially among manye Asian communities, where discussions about  illness and death are frowned upon.