It Pays To Be Pink

The Sunday Age

Sunday October 8, 2006

WILLIAM BIRNBAUER

The pink ribbon campaign has brought breast cancer into the public spotlight. But has it left other killers in the fund-raising shadows? William Birnbauer reports on a marketing triumph.

PUT away the pink Tim Tams, push aside the pink ribbons, wave through the pink fog and take a moment to consider how far we've moved on breast cancer in a short time. It's hard to believe that 10 years ago no one wanted to talk about breast cancer, let alone link their product to a potentially fatal disease.

Despite the fact that almost 12,000 women and 100 men were diagnosed with the disease in Australia each year, breast cancer was seen as an embarrassing women's problem best kept quiet. It robbed men of their wives and mothers but it didn't seem to have much to do with blokes.

Breast cancer survivor Lyn Swinburne says: "I remember the days when the only time you talked about breast cancer was when you whispered it behind your hand. There were many women in those days who would not even tell members of their own family that they'd had a mastectomy. They saw it as . . . almost shameful."

That has changed so dramatically that some people now believe the success of breast cancer research fund-raising is jeopardising funding for lesser-known but more widespread and deadly cancers.

Breast cancer remains the most common cancer in women, and despite deaths falling by 22 per cent in the past decade, it still kills about 2500 Australians each year.

The turnaround in attitudes to the disease has been staggering. "This month you will see pink everywhere," model, mother and breast cancer patron Sarah Murdoch promised last week.

Pink Ribbon day, the fourth Monday in October, has blossomed into a month-long series of events featuring celebrities and many thousands of women.

It is run by the National Breast Cancer Foundation, one of the slickest marketing and fund-raising machines in the country. The foundation has a $1 million publicity budget that generates probably 20 times that amount when pro bono advertising, publicity and free airtime are included.

The foundation has raised $10 million in the past year. The growth in donations is staggering: community groups gave $113,000 in 2002 and $1.4 million this year. Corporate funding jumped from $210,000 to $2.3 million in the same period. The foundation has allocated $26 million to 152 research projects since being founded in 1994.

Much of the success has been forged through the corporate sector - the foundation has formal contracts with 35 companies and a further 50 are involved in "cause-related funding" in which products carry pink ribbon logos and link donations directly to sales.

In addition, there are pink T-shirts, pens, hairdryers, runners and, of course, strawberry Tim Tams, produced especially for October and expected to raise more than $100,000. There's more: Pink Ribbon magazine, pink pins and pink-illuminated buildings. About 5000 pink ribbon breakfasts will be held across the country this month and are expected to and to raise more than last year's $1.1 million.

Have we reached the point where the breast cancer campaign is eating into support for other cancers? Bowel, pancreatic and lung cancers and others don't have anywhere near the level of public awareness - or fundraising clout.

Figures from the Cancer Council of Victoria show that in 2003 there were 3441 diagnosed cases of prostate cancer, 3413 new bowel cancers, 2041 lung cancers and 2894 cases of breast cancer. The highest mortality rate in 2002 was for lung cancer, with 1788 deaths; bowel cancer claimed 1239 lives; prostate cancer 798 and breast cancer 727.

The incidence and mortality rates of prostate cancer are similar to breast cancer. Prostate Cancer Foundation chief executive Andrew Giles admits he is in awe of the breast cancer foundation's operation. "It's extraordinary, and amazing the level of support they've got. We have one or two major events but we haven't got pink Tim Tams or blue Tim Tams coming our way."

The prostate group recently ran TV advertisements with the Australian Pensioners Insurance Agency and Giles says some of breast cancer's traditional backers now want to also "help the guys". Still, it's an uphill battle: the foundation has an annual budget of $900,000 - significantly less than the amount the breast cancer group spends on publicity alone.

Simon Chapman is professor in public health at the University of Sydney and was deputy chairman of the NSW Cancer Council for five years. He says there are "profoundly unfashionable cancers" with high mortality rates that attract little funding or attention, including colorectal, pancreatic and lung cancers.

He questions the priority given to research by fundraising, and points to studies showing that when deaths avoided by not smoking are taken out of the equation there has not been much progress in cancer survival since 1990.

"The question is if you are giving money to charities for cancer, should you just be giving it to research or should you be giving it to prevention, which is where a huge slice of the gains have been made. Or should you be giving it for support? Frankly, the comforts that can be brought to somebody who is in palliative care and dying with cancer are really important. It's not just a matter of future generations and research."

The Cancer Council of Australia, like other groups, uses a pink theme for its "Girls' Night In" event to raise money for research and support of breast and gynaecological cancers.

Professor David Hill is the council's Victorian director and an international expert in social marketing and public health campaigns. He admires the breast cancer campaign, but warns: "If we only raised money for cancer research based on the site of occurrence, it would certainly limit our ability to deploy research funds most effectively, in my opinion."

SUE MURRAY, the National Breast Cancer Foundation's CEO since 2000, says she doesn't hear anyone directly saying the foundation's achievements have been detrimental to other cancers.

"If that criticism was raised with us, I would say there are almost 12,000 women and 100 men who are being diagnosed with breast cancer every year. Our role is to fund research until such time as we understand the causes of breast cancer and can prevent it."

Four years ago Murray and other foundation officials set a goal of raising $5 million a year and gave themselves five years to achieve it. They did it in the first year, and Murray attributes the success to three factors. "I think the real turning point . . . was when Sarah Murdoch agreed to become the patron (in 2001). Up until then, breast health messages were directed to women who were primarily in the. . . 50-to-69 age group."

Murray wanted people to distinguish between the target screening group and the need to pump money into research - an area that was neither age nor gender specific. "So what Sarah did in agreeing to become patron was open this organisation up to a whole much younger generation of people."

The second factor was a groundswell of young people wanting to be involved in not-for-profit fundraising. And finally companies began to see marketing potential in linking their product to a good cause.

Lyn Swinburne, who founded the advocacy group Breast Cancer Network Australia, recalls that 10 years ago breast cancer advocates modelled their campaigns on the successful HIV/AIDs movement which broke down "voodoos" around the disease, personalised it and provided a united group to lobby for drugs.

She hopes that other cancer organisations - which she says are where breast cancer was 10 years ago - will model themselves on Australia's three national breast cancer groups, covering fund raising, advocacy and information.

She believes it's this sort of coordination that gave the network the political clout to successfully lobby the Federal Government to fund the drug Herceptin by adding it to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

© 2006 The Sunday Age

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