The new faces of breast cancer awareness advertising.
- Posted by Ellyn Davidson on April 24th, 2009
filed in Advertising, Breast Cancer, Healthcare Marketing |
Many years ago, we created these ads for the Michigan Department of Community Health. The ads were focused on women 40 and over and they were great. We ran them for many years, turned them into posters and got great results. In general, breast cancer awareness advertising was focused on women 40+. This age group has the highest diagnosis of breast cancer so certainly from a targeting stand point, it made sense.
One month ago Deborah Wasserman Schultz introduce the EARLY Act. The bill calls for $9 million dollars a year from 2010 to 2014 aimed at breast cancer education for women under 40 and physicians. Each year over 10,000 women under 40 are diagnosed with breast cancer–many don’t realize they are at risk and therefore their cancers tend to be caught at a later stage. In addition, breast cancer in younger women tends to be more aggressive. 1,000 of these women will die making breast cancer the leading cause of cancer death in women under 40.
I thank Deborah Wasserman Schultz, a fellow survivor, for bringing this to the table. Pretty soon we may be seeing some new faces in breast cancer awareness advertising and my hope is that the faces will look more like these.
This is me–diagnosed at age 36
My friend Melissa–diagnosed at age 36
My friend Pam–diagnosed at age 34
May 7th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Breast cancer struck an old classmate of mine at the age of 36, breast cancer can strike at any time. My sister in law felt a lump at age 34, her insurance wouldn’t cover anything because she wasn’t 35, thankfully it was a cyst abd she paid for the exam but ut’s time they realize it can stike at anytime. C’mon get with the program. Help these women, do not push them away!
October 5th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Touching and inspirational post Ellyn.
What an effective way to put a human face to an important and shocking statistic. I also like the pull-quote on the second page, “Pain doesn’t come from getting a mammogram. Pain comes from wishing you had gotten one earlier” It gave me a chill.
Good news about the EARLY act, I had no idea breast cancer was so prevalent in women under 40. Hopefully this act will help educate people like myself.
Best of luck with your recovery!
October 5th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Thank you so much Douglas. I’m so glad this post had such an impact on you.
Ellyn