Despite their success, I have always had a problem with the popular Soca artists and leading radio stations whose audience is the youth market. Why? Because I personally think that they do not care about their followers who are at an impressionable age. The bottom line is about making money. Responsibility is not in the equation.
The average Soca number is of a sexual nature. In recent years, they have become less poetic and more raw, with outfits and stage presentations to match. Casual sex is it! Do it! Enjoy it! Forget about consequences! – is the message meted out to our youth. When I look at the statistics I become troubled.
From website Social Venture Challenge, I read the following: According to the Trinidad and Tobago Central Statistical Office (CSO) Population and Vital Statistics Report, of the 2,629 babies born to mothers in the 15 to 19 age group in 2001: • 2,173 babies were first born • 404 were second births • 44 were their mother’s third child • Six babies were to mothers who already had four children • One baby was its mother’s sixth child The CSO also found that: • 25 babies born, were to 14-year-old mothers • Four were to 13-year-old girls • And one baby was born to a mother under the age of 13 These figures, however, do not include teenagers whose pregnancies ended in stillbirths or abortions. Births to teenage mothers between the years 2000 and 2001 amounted to 15% of the total babies born and the numbers have been steadily climbing.
Teenage pregnancy is not my only concern. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS is another. As of 2009, there were 15,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Trinidad and Tobago. A great amount of youths fall within that number. Also, more than 4000 children had been orphaned by the disease. With this in mind, if I were a Soca artiste, I would not feel comfortable singing about casual sex to this vulnerable group.
So what does this have to do with advertising? I came across a campaign done by MTV addressing the STD crisis among the young. They recognise that they are the leaders in their market and some of the material that they present is sexual and they felt that they had a responsibility to educate their population and not just entertain them. They thus came up with the MTV Staying Alive Campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-RKe9ooO38
I wish that our movers and shakers who dominate the youth market will take a page out of MTV’s book and think of responsibility along with the profit.
N.B. If interested in reading more from the Social Venture Challenge site, please click on the following link: socialventurechallenge.com
