Ads Advise New Yorkers To 'Get Some'

By E.B. SOLOMONT, Staff Reporter of the Sun | February 14, 2008

Health officials have redesigned the New York City-brand condom, and they are promoting its new look with an advertising campaign that urges New Yorkers to "get some."

In an effort to promote safer sex, the city plans to mark Valentine's Day by distributing the free condoms today citywide at busy subway stops.

At least one Catholic leader said he was troubled by the message that the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is sending out.

"The idea of 'get some' is a morally irresponsible sound bite," the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, William Donohue, said. "We're worried about trans fats, we're worried about second-hand smoke, and yet when it comes to sexually transmitted disease, we can't bring ourselves to tell people it's time to practice restraint."

Health officials introduced New York City-brand condoms last year, with an inaugural design featuring a black wrapper with subway-themed letters. The city distributed 36 million Lifestyles latex condoms last year, two times as many as the year before. On average, health officials distributed 3 million condoms each month, up from 1.5 million monthly in previous years.

The new design, publicized yesterday, features the words "NYC CONDOM," and it was created by a San Francisco-based designer, Yves Behar. Mr. Behar also designed a condom dispenser, which will be distributed in the coming months. In addition to distributing the condoms today, health officials are launching a television, radio, and print campaign, including advertisements on the subway, to promote condom use. The redesign and advertising campaign cost $900,000, according to the health department.

More than 100,000 New Yorkers are infected with HIV, but thousands more may be infected without knowing it.

"I hope the fresh look will help even more New Yorkers protect themselves," the health department's assistant commissioner for HIV prevention and control, Dr. Monica Sweeney, said in a statement announcing the new design.

Health advocates also praised the giveaway.

"Condoms are about health, and that's what this is about," the director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health at the Gay Men's Health Crisis, Bill Stackhouse, said. "People who have personal or religious concerns, they do not have to avail themselves," he added. "We've got to make them available to those people who choose to take advantage of them for their own health."