nonsense

Cancer Research UK needed to educate people about how important an early cancer diagnosis can be — so we asked the British public a few personal questions, and got them thinking about how familiar they really were with their bodies…

As part of CRUK’s mission to beat cancer sooner, we were tasked with helping the organisation raise awareness about the importance of early diagnosis.

The key to making our audience aware of how crucial an early diagnosis can be lay in getting them talking about their bodies — but the reserved, bashful British public weren’t the easiest audience.

Laughter is the best medicine

Our insight showed us that our target audience — the people of Britain — simply weren’t comfortable talking openly about their bodies, so we decided to tackle the problem head on. With laughter. Privately, everyone has different (and usually very funny) descriptions for their body parts — be it plums, pears, or ping pong balls — and we knew if we could get them to open up about these, we’d be on to something. So that’s exactly what we did.

At its heart, our creative formula was simple — a ‘talking head’ style visual of an average member of the public, alongside a humorous, often eyebrow-raising quote about their body. The lighthearted-nature of the creative helped break down the barriers around a very serious issue — that people not familiar with their bodies are less likely to spot cancer early and get an early diagnosis.

The fully-integrated campaign saw an awareness stage — with posters, billboards, and subtly-animated digital posters — quickly followed by an online engagement drive. By creating a hero piece of video content, a wealth of social assets, and building a conversation around the hashtag #minearelike, we let CRUK’s thousands of followers (including a few celebs) take part in the campaign and talk about their own bodies. All of the creative output directed our audience to an online Signs & Symptoms web app, where they could get detailed information on early diagnosis, and find out why knowing their plums from their pears could save their lives.