Research & Prototyping
IDEO.org

Client: DKT International

Batela Lobi Na Yo
Kinshasa, DRC

How might we reverse entrenched stigma to lower the barriers for young girls in deciding to use a long-term contraceptive?

DKT International, one of the largest providers of subsidized birth control in the global south, asked our team to help them create a new brand that would encourage young people to use contraception, with a focus on long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs). This brand would be launched in Kinshasa, and eventually spread to the rest of DKT’s presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We began with a deep dive into the type of tone that would most resonate with teens, creating a series of different posters along with a set of varying message cards for comparison. Based on this initial research, we came up with some very initial branding directions, and decided to focus on testing which channels would be most effective in encouraging teens to head to a clinic to learn more about contraceptive options.

We created a set of vouchers, each color-coded to one outreach channel, and then ran promotions through each channel, funneling teens to a clinic day at a partner clinic, where consultations would be available with a voucher. We were able to use the color coding to understand which type of outreach had been most successful. 
As part of our work in organizing the clinic day, we commissioned an original song to evoke the power of “Batela Lobi Na Yo,” or Protect Your Future.” This is a tagline that married the two things we heard over and over with birth control - that it was a way for girls to protect themselves, and that it was a bridge toward the future life that they wanted to live. We also commissioned a local girls drama club to write and perform an original play to illustrate this issue.

During the event, we passed around actual IUDs, implants, and injections, knowing that this would be the first time many of them had actually seen the real methods.

Our more refined visual direction used bold colors and photography of “near peer” girls, along with icons for each method, shown where they will be placed on a girl’s body. Each method includes its own “power pose,” to further the confident, future-focused mindset we wanted the brand to imbue.

The Batela brand received ample national press when it launched, and in the first couple years of being released, 20,000 teens had one-on-one conversations with DKT partners about contraceptive use, many for the first time. Of these, 5,000 teens visited a clinic after the initial conversation, and 75% of these teens adopted a contraceptive method.

Batela Lobi Na Yo has continued to expand, and has a very active Facebook page as well as a dedicated call center that launched in 2020.

Credit: IDEO.org