How cancer charities get their lifesaving message across

Half of us will devel­op can­cer in our life­time. There is no avoid­ing this ter­ri­ble, uncom­fort­able truth. Hun­dreds of char­i­ties in the UK sup­port peo­ple affect­ed by the dis­ease and these char­i­ties account­ed for more than 50 per cent of pub­licly fund­ed can­cer research in the last year. The role of com­mu­ni­ca­tions is of crit­i­cal impor­tance as can­cer research mar­ket­ing helps to increase aware­ness, pro­tect pub­lic health and encour­age peo­ple to donate.

This is no sim­ple task. Pub­lic rela­tions, mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing teams have to con­tend with the ever-chang­ing media land­scape and the way peo­ple engage with infor­ma­tion is con­stant­ly evolv­ing. The boom of Tik­Tok and seem­ing­ly unstop­pable rise of pod­casts are just two chan­nels that must be con­sid­ered by any com­mu­ni­ca­tions depart­ment. Every­thing must be eval­u­at­ed for rel­e­vance: will it help a char­i­ty reach its tar­get audi­ence?

Although we are increas­ing­ly on our smart­phones and dig­i­tal devices – we spend an aver­age of 3 hours 29 min­utes online each day, up 17 min­utes com­pared to last year – the vol­un­tary or third sec­tor is renowned for face-to-face fundrais­ing.

Large-scale events like Can­cer Research UK’s Race For Life and the bob­bing rain­bow of char­i­ty-coloured cloth­ing at the Lon­don Marathon are essen­tial parts of a charity’s pub­lic-fac­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy. The pan­dem­ic and nec­es­sary social dis­tanc­ing razed most events’ finan­cial poten­tial in 2020.

Instant health information at our fingertips

Even before coro­n­avirus came along, can­cer char­i­ties’ mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions teams had to try to cut through the vast amount of infor­ma­tion already out there.

We are a nation of Googlers: on aver­age, UK adults spent 47 min­utes a day on Google in 2019. Ali­son Day, direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Prostate Can­cer UK, says access to instant health infor­ma­tion online is pos­i­tive as it can edu­cate peo­ple on cancer’s asso­ci­at­ed risks. How­ev­er, she warns: “This can also bring mis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­un­der­stand­ing. Char­i­ties have moments, if not sec­onds, to get their brand mes­sages across and for the right infor­ma­tion to land.”

When Prostate Can­cer UK comes up with ideas, Day con­sid­ers how can­cer research mar­ket­ing mes­sages will land among a sea of oth­ers: “What will make our sto­ry jump off a Face­book time­line or catch your eye dur­ing an ad break?” She says it is essen­tial to show the pub­lic the truth of the num­ber-one can­cer affect­ing men and now the most com­mon­ly diag­nosed can­cer. “You can’t talk about prostate can­cer with­out show­ing the real­i­ty of the dis­ease and the gut-wrench­ing injus­tice it caus­es,” says Day.

Jo’s Trust, the UK’s lead­ing cer­vi­cal can­cer char­i­ty, believes it’s cru­cial to have a dynam­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy that spans many chan­nels. “We’re very aware that one medi­um doesn’t reach every per­son,” says Kate Sanger, head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pub­lic affairs. Its out­door adver­tis­ing speaks to a dif­fer­ent audi­ence than its social media sup­port forums for women liv­ing with the dis­ease.

Life-changing cancer research marketing campaigns

Coro­n­avirus meant Jo’s Trust lost 60 per cent of its fundrais­ing income almost overnight. It had to recon­sid­er plans to best sup­ple­ment the NHS and keep com­mu­ni­cat­ing how cer­vi­cal can­cer is large­ly pre­ventable. The chal­lenge is get­ting the tone right when so many peo­ple are expe­ri­enc­ing height­ened anx­i­ety. Sanger says: “We didn’t want to over­bur­den and crit­i­cise the NHS, and at the same time we nev­er want to make any­one feel like they are to blame if they can’t attend a smear test.”

Ovar­i­an can­cer is one of many ver­sions of the dis­ease that does not have a reli­able screen­ing pro­gramme. It means know­ing the signs and tak­ing action is of vital impor­tance. Annwen Jones, chief exec­u­tive of Tar­get Ovar­i­an Can­cer, says: “We have to make our com­mu­ni­ca­tions work hard to com­bat low aware­ness and to help more peo­ple under­stand how the sit­u­a­tion with ovar­i­an can­cer is so chal­leng­ing.”

The char­i­ty fea­tures women with ovar­i­an can­cer in its media and social media cam­paigns, shar­ing their expe­ri­ences. Every day, 11 women die in the UK from ovar­i­an can­cer and treat­ing it ear­ly makes all the dif­fer­ence. “When diag­nosed at the ear­li­est stage, 93 per cent of women sur­vive for five years or more,” says Jones.

Tar­get Ovar­i­an Can­cer hopes that if peo­ple know the symp­toms, they will feel empow­ered to go to their GP. How­ev­er, research shows just one in five women could name bloat­ing as a key symp­tom.

Communicating increased survival and racing for life

Can­cer sur­vival in the UK has dou­bled in the last 40 years. Can­cer Research UK’s fund­ing of sci­en­tists, doc­tors and nurs­es has been at the heart of the progress, accord­ing to direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lau­ra Peters. “It’s incred­i­bly impor­tant to share the impact of our life­sav­ing work and achieve­ments of our researchers,” she says. 

The char­i­ty ensures can­cer research mar­ket­ing is tai­lored to the bespoke audi­ence of each chan­nel. The read­er of a region­al news­pa­per will be inter­est­ed in dif­fer­ent insights than the research com­mu­ni­ty and social chan­nels fea­ture bite-sized infor­ma­tion com­pared to the deep-dives on the sci­ence blog, which has seen record vis­its dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

It’s incred­i­bly impor­tant to share the impact of our life­sav­ing work

Peters doesn’t believe peo­ple have become desen­si­tised to can­cer research mar­ket­ing mes­sages, even amid the shock of COVID-19. “They are crav­ing infor­ma­tion and on-the-ground intel­li­gence from a trust­ed source. It’s our respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide that for them,” she says.

Nor­mal­ly, Race for Life series rais­es £30 mil­lion towards Can­cer Research UK’s work in the pre­ven­tion, diag­no­sis and treat­ment of can­cer. Dur­ing lock­down, the Race for Life at Home ini­tia­tive encour­aged sup­port­ers to keep fit and active indoors with reg­u­lar Face­book live streams. At the end of Sep­tem­ber, thou­sands of peo­ple across the coun­try took part in social­ly dis­tanced 5‑kilometre runs, rais­ing vital funds in the process. After all, can­cer does not stop for coro­n­avirus.  

How will COVID impact future cancer research?

Coro­n­avirus has hit can­cer char­i­ties’ fundrais­ing and abil­i­ty to sup­port vital research hard. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Can­cer Research Insti­tute, char­i­ties’ research spend­ing could drop by 46 per cent, or £167 mil­lion, as a result of the pan­dem­ic.

Can­cer Research UK is pro­ject­ing a 30 per cent drop in income of £160 mil­lion this year and £300 mil­lion over the next three years. “We could be forced to reduce the amount of research we fund annu­al­ly,” says Lau­ra Peters, direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions. The char­i­ty cur­rent­ly spends £400 mil­lion on research and, over the next four to five years, it may reduce this by some £150 mil­lion a year.

COVID-19 has caused enor­mous dis­rup­tion to can­cer ser­vices across the UK, includ­ing delays to can­cer screen­ing, diag­no­sis and treat­ment. GPs made a quar­ter of a mil­lion few­er urgent can­cer refer­rals in Eng­land between April and June, and the Insti­tute of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Research says this is like­ly to wipe out almost a decade of life­sav­ing progress.

Annwen Jones, chief exec­u­tive of Tar­get Ovar­i­an Can­cer, says: “The impact of the pan­dem­ic on women with ovar­i­an can­cer can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed.” The finan­cial upheaval means it has had to post­pone its next round of ovar­i­an can­cer research grants, inves­ti­gat­ing poten­tial­ly life-chang­ing projects.

“When there are already too few effec­tive treat­ment options for ovar­i­an can­cer, this is of huge con­cern,” says Jones.

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