No regrets campaign

Background

At 22, Kristin Hallenga was told she was "too young to get breast cancer". Which meant her cancer was diagnosed late and could only be treated, never cured. She set up CoppaFeel! in 2009 with the aim of ensuring all breast cancers are diagnosed early. Making treatment more effective.

Most young people know little about breast cancer. They associate it with older women and don’t think it’ll affect them. The challenge was to increase awareness among young people (18-35). And get them to check their boobs regularly.

The ambitious aim was to increase sign-ups to CoppaFeel!’s text-reminder service by 25%.

Idea

Eighty-eight per cent of people use their phone in the loo; often young people on a big night out. And you know where that leads. The gobbledegook; ‘I love you’; no-reply texts. The texts you live to regret.

So the agency decided to tell those people about one text they wouldn’t regret. The one they send to CoppaFeel! to set up monthly reminders to check their boobs. The one that could save their lives.

And where better to get that message across than in the loos of bars and clubs?

To stand a chance of getting noticed on a night out, the execution needed to be amusing and relevant. A large smartphone displaying a series of text messages certainly stood out. And a very one-sided conversation made people want to read the full story. When they did, it was something they could easily relate to and laugh about. The girl chasing the guy, the text shorthand, the auto-correct errors after a few too many drinks, the embarrassment the next morning.

Results

The washroom campaign certainly got attention. Sign-ups to the text-reminder service increased by 50% during the two-week campaign. Double the original target.

Hopefully they succeeded in saving some embarrassment. And some lives.