The Prostate Cancer Research Foundation
There are few campaigns which capture the public’s imagination and generate media interest like this one has done. But we don’t want to be judged on conventional response rate and ROI, especially as everyone involved in creating the campaign from production to post-production, worked on it for free.
The Prostate Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) raises money for research into new treatments and better diagnosis. Each project costs hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund. The PCRF brand was strong within the scientific community, but was virtually unknown to the general public. The Client wanted to change public perception in order to raise more funds.
The charity sector is saturated and the call for donations from individuals has never been greater. This is particularly acute as we enter a time of economic austerity. Within the cancer charities sector, there are a profusion of highly visible brands and campaigns competing for attention - many of whom have considerable PR and advertising expertise and also sizeable budgets at their disposal. Prostate Cancer has traditionally seen a lot less funding and support compared to Breast Cancer, even though it is the biggest, most common male cancer.
Prostate Cancer is killing men in the UK at the rate of one man every hour. Despite these alarming statistics, awareness and media coverage of prostate cancer is low. Men in the UK don’t tend to talk about health issues and are often reluctant to visit a doctor. It was therefore important to the Client to have a campaign that would resonate with the core target market and raise awareness of the disease.
The Campaign objectives
- To raise awareness of prostate cancer in the UK
- To de-stigmatise the disease and make it a less embarrassing subject for men to discuss or consult their doctors about
- To raise media interest
- To raise the profile of the charity to generate wider interest
- To build the donor database for future fundraising
- To achieve the maximum impact with the minimum budget possible
Campaign Strategy:
The Agency needed to create a campaign that would firmly put both the disease and the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) on the national agenda.
Using a celebrity can add real weight to a campaign, but a current sufferer of the disease would be difficult approach to talk about his illness. How could we use a celebrity (and the awareness that could therefore be quickly generated) in a way that had never been done before? Bringing the comedian Bob Monkhouse back from the dead, to talk about losing his battle with prostate cancer was both original and controversial. (Bob died in 2003).
The Agency created a 40” DRTV commercial for TV and cinema, which showed Bob talking about losing his battle with prostate cancer. This was supported through-the-line via various media, including a targeted DM piece which seemed like it had been written by Bob. All elements emulated his inimitable comic style. The use of a British comedian resonated with our target segment and the wider UK audience.
With complete support from his widow, The Agency used Bob’s popularity within the target audience to create impact, achieve cut through and generate word of mouth - thus putting prostate cancer on the national agenda.
In order to achieve maximum reach a partnership with The Sun, with a daily readership of 7.9 million, was implemented to launch the campaign with an exclusive film preview on The Sun Online and double page spread in The Sun newspaper.
The campaign extension was supported by outdoor media, bus stops, billboards and taxi sides. WHSmith displayed our posters and sold badges.
A fully integrated campaign was developed. The media strategy was to drive as many people as possible to the microsite (www.giveafewbob.org) to see the film and donate.
The campaign launched with a double page feature in The Sun and a film premiere on The Sun online. The next day, the story was picked up by every news programme, from GMTV to the BBC News at Ten. This was accompanied by blanket press and radio coverage.
The agency worked hard to generate as much free media as possible, covering outdoor posters, free national press, free airtime in Vue Cinemas, in 500 taxis, within Truck Advertising and in the London Underground.
The Campaign was both humorous and poignant thus achieving cut through. The concept of ‘bringing someone back from the dead’ enabled free PR coverage, viral energy and word of mouth that other campaigns failed to achieve. The idea could be seen as contentious and every care was taken to ensure a tasteful creative execution. Taking the campaign from concept to reality was a risk, but Bob’s wise-cracking humour was so perfectly emulated that the audience (including his family) genuinely felt this is something Bob would not only approve of, but something he would have done himself.
Results
A large amount of media value was created with a very small budget. An estimated 83% of the UK population has seen the campaign an average of 4 times.
The PCRF annual income from the point at which the campaign broke in June 2007, has more than doubled*.
There has been a 228% increase in the charity’s donor base including a rise in the number of regularly monthly donors by 580%.
Traffic to the charity’s website (www.thepcrf.org) has increased by a massive amount. Number of visitors to the PCRF website per month. The film has been watched many times on YouTube and on the microsite. www.giveafewbob.org has been viewed as far away as Mongolia.