Pancreatic Cancer Action: why we ran a controversial ad campaign

Due to the fact there was a tiny price range, Stunt explains, it was crucial adverts should stand out.

Any sort of cancer is a horrible disease but, fortunately, funding and campaigning has witnessed the survival costs for several kinds of the illness boost tremendously in the last number of decades.

Even so, pancreatic cancer, the UK’s fifth largest killer amid cancers, has been minor acknowledged, poorly understood and chronically underfunded, which goes some way to explaining why survival charges have not enhanced in forty years.

Even though no early detection method exists for the cancer, the crucial to shifting survival figures is early diagnosis. If a patient is diagnosed in time for them to obtain surgical procedure, their chance of survival increases tenfold.

A latest patient survey discovered that far more than 50% of pancreatic cancer sufferers had in no way heard of the ailment before their own diagnosis. We have been established to adjust this lack of awareness and eventually drive earlier diagnosis, which is why we worked with Team Darwin to devise a effective campaign.

Shock factor
With a restricted spending budget, it was important that the advert would stand out and provoke thought and initiate discussionamong members of the public, the media and influencers.

This is when Staff Darwin conceived the concept of the “I want I had … ” campaign. Pancreatic cancer sufferers are proven explaining that they wished they had breast, cervical or testicular cancer due to the fact their odds of survival would be greater. It displays the genuine insight of numerous pancreatic cancer patients upon diagnosis, and how it feels to be diagnosed with a illness that leaves you with no hope at all.

As taboo as it may sound, when faced with a 3% possibility of surviving a lot more than 5 years, it is not unreasonable to want for a cancer with a better survival fee. This is specifically how I felt when I was diagnosed with the condition in 2007.

The determination to run this campaign was not taken lightly, and we carried out a honest quantity of research to recognize what the probably reaction was going to be.

We also exposed the campaign to many folks, which includes those who’d been impacted by the cancers pointed out in the campaign, as well as people who’d been affected by pancreatic cancer itself.

The end result was that we knew that once folks understood the copy in the advert, the chance of real offence was very reduced. We also knew that the response created was strong and was for that reason most likely to lodge in people’s memories – thus helping our goals of raising awareness of this terrible condition and its signs and symptoms.

All the adverts characteristic true pancreatic cancer individuals who genuinely truly feel that way. None of them hesitated in taking part in the campaign. What these patients are wishing for are greater odds than those they are dealing with.

While the direct criticisms that we have received are in their hundreds, millions of men and women are now aware of pancreatic cancer who weren’t a week in the past. And they’re now becoming aware of the signs and symptoms. As effectively as a huge improve in views of our signs webpage, we have acquired telephone calls from people wanting to discover out a lot more. The attention this campaign has obtained has also paved the way for a symptoms-awareness campaign that we launched on the London tube this week.

Our aim is to save lives and that is accomplished by early diagnosis, which come from making awareness wherever and whichever way we can.

Ali Stunt is the chief executive of Pancreatic Cancer Action.

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Pancreatic Cancer Action: why we ran a controversial ad campaign