Flash Photo Posters
The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust
Issue 34 | March 2015
Agency
Wunderman UK
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Matt Batten Creative Director Evan Jones Associate Creative Director Stephanie DiGianvincenzo Art Director Evan Jones Copywriter Stefanie DiGianvincenzo Artworker Kevin Guild
Production Team
Chief Strategy Officer Richard Dunn Senior Planner Annie Gass Planner Lydia Taylor Account Manager Kiran Mudhar Account Executive Anna-Marie Teemant
Date
December 2014
Background
Retinablastoma was an aggressive cancer that attacked the eyes of very young children, sometimes from birth. The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust (CHECT) wanted to raise awareness, targeting doctors, nurses, parents and carers of children in a way that engaged and educated at the same time.
Idea
An eye that contained retinoblastoma may have looked normal, but the pupil appeared white when photographed with a flash. In other words, everyone had the means to detect this deadly cancer in their pocket – their mobile phones.
To let people experience it for themselves, the campaign featured real cancer survivors aged between 18 months and 6 years old in a series of posters distributed across doctor's surgeries, nurseries and hospitals. The posters
used an innovative, invisible but highly reflective ink and invited people to use their mobile phones to take a flash photo of the poster. While the child's eye looked normal in the poster, the pupil was suddenly white in the photo – just like a real retinoblastoma. To extend the reach and effectiveness of the poster campaign, an online film explained the disease, the campaign and this simple way to detect eye cancer in children.
Results
The video has been viewed over 400,000 times and received international coverage in mainstream, health, technology, and family press outlets including The Guardian, Health
Matters, and Daily Express with an estimated reach of 39 million.
The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust has even been contacted by like-minded charities from across the globe, such as the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, to offer support and request for posters to distribute in their communities.
Our Thoughts
Here is an example of the right message at the right time and in the right place. The problem is that most parents simply don’t realise their children may have retinoblastoma but talking to them in the doctor’s waiting room, when they are (a) in the right mindset to think about their children’s health and (b) actually have a couple of minutes to try the test, is intelligent thinking.
Confucius wrote, “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, involve me and I will understand.” This is a great example of an idea that involves.