The ‘Get Cancer’ ad campaign is a disgrace

Cancer is a word with different meanings to lots of different people. In my professional lifetime, I started by seeing the disease referred to in hushed tones as “the big C” before reaching a point where society is now comfortable with the quotidian use of the words cancer and malignant tumour.

However, this more mature approach does not mean that people no longer fear cancer. Despite our many therapeutic advances in radiotherapy and oncology, a late cancer diagnosis means the chances of it being life-threatening are quite high. It’s a disease that still merits respect.

To say I was surprised by the Irish Cancer Society’s (ICS) new year public relations campaign would be an understatement. The prominent placing of the theme “get cancer” in the multimedia advertising campaign was bothersome when read in print; however watching and listening to the tone of the early TV and radio adds was like experiencing a bad dream. The bald intonation of the phrase “get cancer” could only mean one message: for the listener and viewer to acquire cancer – as in to develop the disease.

By not using inverted commas around the phrase in print and by failing to instruct the radio and TV actors to use an intonation of “get” cancer that would imply those listening might benefit from increasing their knowledge about the disease, the ICS cannot, with any credibility, say that knowledge acquisition was its prime motive. So far the campaign has been nothing short of sensationalistic and fear-inducing.

Did anyone at executive level in the ICS not realise the campaign might threaten a large part of its membership and constituency – those currently undergoing cancer treatment? And what of the many grieving families who have recently lost a loved one to malignancy? The insensitivity for them of being invited to get cancer beggars belief.

Dolores Grace is one such relative. The Co Meath mother of Elliot, who died from cancer some five months after his initial diagnosis, has written to the ICS urging it to rethink the advertising campaign:

“You say it’s shock tactics are to raise awareness. Let me tell you in a nation as small as Ireland there is not a house, a street, a village a town that has not ‘got’ cancer. Lights have gone out all over our country because people have got cancer.”

“My children at seven, nine and 10 have just watched their brother who ‘got’ cancer die. They cannot understand and I must say I’m with them as to why you would place these ads on national television at the times you have. My 7- year-old said why would anyone say they want to get cancer it’s awful. They do not get subliminal messages and your timing of this ad is shocking in that regard.”

The Irish Cancer Society said its awareness campaign has produced a 100 per cent increase in calls to its helpline. The charity's head of communications, Grainne O'Rourke, said the campaign is having the desired effect due to a high level of public engagement. "If, as a result of 'I want to get cancer', even one more person 'gets cancer' by attending their cancer screening appointment, or making a lifestyle change that reduced their risk of contracting the disease, then it would have been all worth it."

I can’t say I agree. Has it struck the ICS that many of these additional calls are likely to have been triggered by fear? The “worried well” represent a significant group in modern society. Those with a tendency towards hypochondriasis are even more vulnerable to scare campaigns. A key question the society needs to answer is whether, during the piloting of this campaign, it measured respondents fear of cancer before and after viewing the ads.

This ill thought out campaign to “get cancer” may be a success when measured by social media metrics. But as an exercise in promoting health it is a disgrace.