Abstract - Multimedia, 2018 SBCC Summit: "The Lucky Specials": Employing the Power of Storytelling to Demystify the Science and Stigma Behind Tuberculosis in Sub-Saharan Africa

From the producers of the award-winning film Inside Story, a film that reached broad audiences with empowering messages about preventing HIV, comes a new feature-length film, The Lucky Specials. The film uses dramatic and non-fiction storytelling to demystify tuberculosis (TB), explain how it spreads, and demonstrate how it can be cured. The film has been distributed through diverse channels to millions of people across southern Africa and beyond, boasting evaluation results that show changes in both TB-related knowledge and behavior intention.

Through dynamic characters and a captivating storyline, The Lucky Specials replaces misconceptions about TB with facts and shows the journey of TB bacteria inside the body with state-of-the-art animation. By making the film personal, practical and memorable, The Lucky Specials offers audiences a relatable experience, transporting them to a vibrant inner world where hard-to-grasp science is transformed into a compelling visual reality. The story centers on The Lucky Specials, a small-time cover band in a mining town in South Africa. Mandla works as a miner by day, but is the lead singer of the Lucky Specials by night. In the dark, wet mining shafts, the hours are long, and silica dust fills the air. These crowded and dusty conditions make the spread of this airborne, highly contagious disease even more likely.

The key messages and target audiences behind the film were defined using a formative research process that included a technical advisory board of public health experts, regional government officials, scriptwriters, scientific advisors, and other stakeholders. The animation was informed by focus group testing at early stages. Critical feedback from target audiences was important in identifying ways to scale back the complexity of the science while keeping it accurate and entertaining.

The distribution and success of The Lucky Specials has been multifaceted. The film is being distributed through free-to-air broadcast television, facilitated viewings in clinics and schools, and grassroots DVD distribution by NGOs, schools and governments. Facilitator guides and educational materials inform community and school screenings to help reinforce messages, and the film's website has been newly launched with additional TB-related information. To date, The Lucky Specials has over 14 broadcast deals, with at least 10 more in development, and will be broadcast to at least 250,000,000 viewers across the African continent.

In-depth monitoring and evaluation was conducted in a mixed-methods approach that allowed for data gathering in multiple ways to elicit a variety of standpoints on the important achievements and recommendations of The Lucky Specials movie going forward. The evaluation agency employed a quasi-experimental, two-group pre- and post-assessment design for this evaluation, including a follow-up post-assessment on the intervention group. Initial evaluation findings conclude that the film successfully transferred TB-related knowledge to viewers in South Africa and Lesotho, and that it had some immediate effect on viewers' TB-related perceptions and immediate and short-term TB-related behaviour intention. For example, 97% of viewers said they were going for TB testing as opposed to 71% of the comparison group, and statistically significant intended behavior change increased in the intervention group, while it decreased in the comparison group.

Additionally, the evaluation process proved demand for more high-quality films and massive distribution opportunities in the future, and included ways to build on interventions, including: repackaging the film into shorter content; expanding screening opportunities linked directly to coordinated health service provision; and magnifying reach and messaging through more inclusive multimedia productions such as online video clips, information posters, and coordinated TV and/or radio talk show discussions.
 

Editor's note: Held April 16-20 2018 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, the 2018 International Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) Summit featuring Entertainment Education is organised to better understand what works in shifting social norms, changing behaviours, and amplifying the voices of those who have the most at stake in the success of development efforts. Click here to learn more. Above is an abstract from a multimedia session to be held at the Summit.