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Gilead and T-Boz Rewrite HIV Prevention for Black America
Gilead Sciences released "So We PrEP" in November 2025, a reimagined version of TLC's iconic 1990s track "Creep" performed by T-Boz herself and reframed as an anthem for HIV prevention, Black joy, and sexual empowerment in the United States.
"So We PrEP" serves as the centrepiece of Gilead's broader "Care for the Culture" initiative, a movement designed to spark honest, culturally grounded conversations about sexual health in Black communities across the US market. The campaign was developed in partnership with Majority, a Black-owned-and-operated advertising agency based in Atlanta, whose founding partner and president Asmirh Davis described the work's core ambition as normalising the conversation around HIV prevention and PrEP. The strategic premise is urgent: according to campaign documentation, only fourteen percent of PrEP users in the United States are Black, despite Black Americans accounting for forty-two percent of new HIV diagnoses nationally. That disparity frames every creative and strategic decision the campaign makes. By choosing T-Boz — one of the most recognisable voices in R&B history and an artist already associated with frank messaging about safe sex — Gilead and Majority anchored the campaign in cultural authenticity rather than clinical instruction. The result is a film campaign that trades the language of pharmaceutical advertising for the language of Black popular culture, meeting audiences where identity, music, and community already intersect. Gilead has operated in HIV medicine for more than thirty-five years, and "So We PrEP" represents the company's most culturally specific US campaign execution to date, earning a Clapboard Score of 77 out of 100.
A profound racial disparity in PrEP uptake defines the strategic problem Gilead set out to address in the United States. According to campaign documentation, sixty-four percent of PrEP users in the US are white, yet white Americans represent only twenty-five percent of new HIV cases. Black women face particularly acute risk: they account for half of all new HIV diagnoses among women in the United States while representing only thirteen percent of the US female population, per the same source. Data from AIDSVu, which tracks HIV and PrEP access at the local level across the US, consistently maps this disparity geographically, showing that PrEP use remains lowest in precisely the communities where HIV transmission rates are highest. Research published through the American Public Health Association and documented at Apha Confex identifies structural stigma, mistrust of the healthcare system, and a lack of culturally resonant health communication as compounding barriers to PrEP adoption among Black Americans.
In this context, Gilead's decision to move away from conventional pharmaceutical messaging and toward a culture-first platform is a direct strategic response to a documented communication failure. Majority, whose approach to reaching Black audiences through disruptive cultural ideas is central to its agency identity according to Asmirh Davis, was the logical creative partner. The agency occupies a distinct position relative to larger healthcare advertising competitors precisely because its ownership structure, creative leadership, and cultural fluency are inseparable from the communities the campaign seeks to reach. Gilead's own HIV product sales reached a substantial level globally in 2025 according to SEC filings reported by Investors Gilead, with the company simultaneously launching Yeztugo, a twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir for HIV prevention, in the US market. "So We PrEP" sits within a broader commercial and public health moment in which Gilead is expanding its PrEP portfolio while confronting persistent access inequity in the United States.
Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins anchors the creative execution of "So We PrEP" as both performer and cultural signifier. The campaign's central device — rewriting TLC's 1990s hit "Creep" so that its chorus and lyrical architecture carry a message about PrEP, protection, and sexual empowerment — was developed under the creative direction of Juan Vidal at Majority, with Chief Creative Officer Omid Farhang overseeing the campaign's overall creative vision. Associate Creative Director Priyanka Pai and Art Director OJ Wilson contributed to the execution, while strategy direction came from the agency's strategy team and account leadership was held by Group Account Director Estefania Calvachi, Associate Account Director Christina Tuck, and Account Manager Victoria Caro, according to agency records cited by majorityagency.com and documented on linkedin.com.
The creative logic of the piece depends on the audience already knowing "Creep" — its melody, its emotional register, and its association with T-Boz herself. By preserving the sonic DNA of the original while replacing its lyrical content with explicit, celebratory language around HIV prevention and PrEP, the campaign bypasses the defensive posture that health messaging often triggers. Black joy and sexual empowerment are not rhetorical garnishes here; they are structural creative elements that make the HIV prevention message legible and shareable within the intended community. As reported by mediapost.com and pharmavoice.com, the campaign launched on November 26, 2025, positioning it ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, a deliberate calendrical choice that amplifies the cultural conversation at the moment of maximum public attention. The film format — a single media asset — concentrates creative investment into one high-impact execution rather than diffusing it across a fragmented media landscape, a decision consistent with Majority's stated philosophy of creating ideas that disrupt culture in entertaining and unexpected ways.
Archive material catalogued on clapboard.com recorded approximately 1.35 million views and over 1,300 likes for the "So We PrEP" film asset, though these figures are unverified by Gilead or Majority and no independently audited campaign performance data is publicly available at the time of writing. No verified data on reach, PrEP consultation uplift, or earned media value has been disclosed by either the client or the agency. What the available evidence does support is an assessment of structural effectiveness.
The campaign's creative mechanism — cultural recognition via a known artist and a known song — dramatically lowers the barrier to engagement with a stigmatised health topic. Research indexed through amidacareny.org and aidsvu.org establishes that stigma is among the primary documented barriers to HIV prevention access in the United States, particularly in Black communities. A campaign that meets that barrier with familiarity, humour, and Black joy rather than clinical gravity is structurally sound in its approach. As reported by positivelyaware.com and pharmavoice.com, the "Care for the Culture" platform represents a deliberate shift in Gilead's US communications strategy toward community-embedded, culturally specific messaging, a lineage that also includes the earlier "HIV Is Not a Crime" spot featuring André De Shields, which launched December 2, 2022, according to records cited by pharmexec.com. "So We PrEP" advances that lineage by making PrEP itself — not merely HIV awareness — the explicit subject of a piece of popular culture. Clapboard's editorial assessment awards the campaign a score of 77 out of 100, recognising strong cultural specificity and creative courage alongside the inherent challenge of converting cultural engagement into documented health behaviour change.
"So We PrEP" is a 2025 Gilead HIV prevention campaign created by Atlanta agency Majority. It features T-Boz performing a reimagined version of TLC's "Creep," reframed around PrEP access and sexual empowerment, and serves as the launch expression of Gilead's broader "Care for the Culture" platform targeting Black communities in the United States.
T-Boz brings both cultural authority and personal relevance to the campaign. As a founding member of TLC — a group historically associated with frank safe-sex messaging — her participation gives the HIV prevention message immediate credibility and cultural resonance within Black communities, which Gilead and Majority identified as the primary audience for the Care for the Culture initiative.
Black Americans account for forty-two percent of new HIV diagnoses in the United States but represent only fourteen percent of PrEP users, according to campaign documentation. White Americans represent sixty-four percent of PrEP users despite accounting for twenty-five percent of new HIV cases. This disparity is the central strategic problem the campaign was built to address.
Majority, a Black-owned-and-operated advertising agency based in Atlanta, created the campaign. Key credits include Chief Creative Officer Omid Farhang, Founding Partner and President Asmirh Davis, Creative Director Juan Vidal, and Associate Creative Director Priyanka Pai, according to agency records documented by majorityagency.com and linkedin.com.
The campaign launched on November 26, 2025, as reported by mediapost.com and pharmavoice.com. The timing placed it immediately ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, 2025, maximising cultural and media relevance during the period of highest public attention to HIV awareness in the United States.
Clapboard awarded "So We PrEP" a score of 77 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong cultural specificity, creative courage in reframing a beloved R&B track around HIV prevention, and its structurally sound approach to reducing stigma, balanced against the difficulty of verifying direct health behaviour outcomes from a single film asset.
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