Cancer Research Client on Creating a New Campaign

You may already have read how Anomaly and TV production company The Garden created the new Cancer Research UK campaign, utilising a new approach, but here, Anthony Newman, Cancer Research UK’s director of brand, marketing and communications, reveals how the charity knew it needed a change of advertising direction. 

With 22.6 million people affected by cancer in the UK - directly or indirectly - who don't yet support CRUK, there was a huge imperitive to reach those people but without any campaign sounding as if the fight was hopeless.

What was the brief with which you approached Anomaly?

I wanted a campaign which would enable us to reach a mass audience through a universal human truth that would resonate with anyone, regardless of age or whether they have had a close experience of cancer or not.

To give the charity strong foundations for the future we really need to grow our supporter base and that meant finding a creative platform that would help us engage with new supporters.

We know that 22.6m people in the UK have been affected by cancer – either being diagnosed themselves or an immediate family member has had cancer - but do not support us, so there were barriers to getting people to take action.

One significant barrier is that people generally don’t believe that cancer can ever be beaten. The main challenge conveyed in the brief was that we needed to increase people’s belief that one day we will beat cancer, but we need the public’s support to make it happen.

We wanted the new campaign to talk about our mission as a charity in a different way, by communicating the progress we’re making every single day through research and the importance of each step of the journey that brings us closer to beating the disease.

It was essential that we inspire the public to understand that the future is being shaped by actions that can be taken right now, and that they have the power to make a difference. Above everything, we wanted a campaign that would make people feel something.

Were you actively looking for a new approach to raising awareness of Cancer Research UK?

The charity advertising space has become increasingly crowded and non-charity brands have started using powerful emotion in their advertising with great success. I knew we needed to do something very different and unexpected to standout and inspire people to take action.

It sounds very cynical to say, but people are often very jaded when it comes to charity advertising and they seem to know the usual tropes and clichés, therefore inuring themselves somewhat from the desired effect; were you aware of the need to avoid that?

Definitely. I know from the consumer insight we have gathered that if we look like we’re pleading with the public and show the hopeless side of cancer, people will just switch off.

I wanted to show people that they can make a difference and that we are making progress every day. For us it has to be about creating a sense of hope - showing people why we need their support, but at the same time giving them hope that they can do something that will make a difference.

When Anomaly first pitched the idea of, essentially, a documentary series, what were your initial thoughts?

I absolutely loved it. To me, it was much more than using a documentary style approach to make advertising. There was a really solid strategy behind it which meant that we had a creative platform that we could use for two, three or more years, not just one campaign.

The idea of breaking cancer down and showing people the tapestry of what the reality of cancer really is through the eyes of patients and their loved ones, our researchers and the medical staff that treat cancer patients every day, is what bought it to life for me .

Anomaly has mentioned how they had to have trust in The Garden and in what they were doing from a production sense; was that two-fold for Cancer Research UK, in that you had to trust that Anomaly knew what they were doing as well as what The Garden were putting together?

I’ve had to have an incredible amount of trust in putting this campaign together. It’s been completely unlike any other traditional advertising campaign in that I really didn’t know what we were going to get until the cameras went into the hospital.

We spent a long time with Anomaly developing the creative brief and immersing them in the work of the charity to ensure that they could bring that out in the adverts. But I also knew that we were in very safe hands with The Garden and their track record, and had a brilliant director in Henry Singer who could execute the idea that Anomaly came up with.

When you saw the first cut of the main film, what did you think?

I was speechless. The whole team were so moved by the films, I knew we had made the right decision in working with Anomaly and The Garden to create this campaign. What we saw packed a punch in terms of emotion so I felt really excited.

What do you hope this campaign will achieve and do you think more clients, charity or otherwise, will take this approach in the future?

I hope that this campaign shows people something new about the world of cancer that they didn’t know before. I hope that it inspires people to support us, whether they choose to donate, volunteer, fundraise or campaign.

We think showing reality is a great new approach to advertising, so I am sure others will attempt to use it. But creating a successful campaign with this approach isn’t easy and you need the confidence to stay true to the idea of reality for it to work well.