Skin protection campaign stops 2200 cancers developing

A skin cancer awareness campaign targeting young people in a bid to avoid melanomas later in life helped avert more than 2200 skin cancers from developing.

The ‘If you could see UV’ campaign by 303 MullenLowe for The Cancer Institute NSW visualised UV as ultra-violet arrows, to drive home the message about the dangers of not wearing sunscreen.

A skin cancer awareness campaign helped avert more than 2200 skin cancers from developing, equating to a lifetime cost saving of over $20 million, according to the Cancer Institute of NSW.

The ‘If you could see UV’ campaign targeted 18 to 24 year olds, who are less likely to protect their skin versus the general population, in a bid to shift behaviour and avoid skin cancer and melanoma later in life.

The campaign, which is now in its third year, was led by the insight that while most young people know they need to wear sunscreen, thanks to the prevalence of the Slip Slop Slap campaigns, the desire of having a tan was a stronger immediate concern for them than the threat of skin cancer later in life.

“Our research revealed that for a lot of young people, particularly 18 to 24 year olds, the perceived benefits of UV exposure, and by that I mean benefits like attractiveness and confidence and social norms, like having a tan, outweighed the perceived threat of skin cancer and the severity of UV exposure,” said Cancer Institute NSW head of marketing Matt Clarke.

“The campaign aimed to reverse that equation by increasing the perceived threat of UV radiation and making sun protection seem easier, and normal, which is pretty tricky for this young audience.”

The ‘If you could see UV’ campaign by 303 MullenLowe for The Cancer Institute NSW visualised UV as ultra-violet arrows, to drive home the message about the dangers of not wearing sunscreen.

Cancer Institute NSW’s advertising agency 303 MullenLowe focused on the invisible danger of UV, bringing this to life as arrows descending from the sky and piercing people’s skin in a series of adverts. The ads ran across social media, audio and cinema, as well as out-of-home channels in locations where the target audience would be.

303 MullenLowe chief strategy officer Jody Elston said the idea was that if young people could see the damage of UV they would protect their skin.

“A lot of the damage is done in young adulthood when skin protection behaviors are at their worst. That’s why it’s really important to target young people.

“This audience tends to think it’s not going to happen to me, and if it does, I can just get it cut out when I’m older. We needed to reverse that equation in people’s minds, by showing that the threat was real and imminent, and quite visceral. We also needed to make the solutions easy and normal by pulling on a behavioral bias that we can use to drive change.”

While behavioural change campaigns for public health issues often rely on hard hitting imagery, 303 MullenLowe executive creative director Bart Pawlak said this campaign deliberately balanced rational and emotional elements to connect with its target audience.

“It’s a sobering fact: skin cancer is one of the biggest killers of young people in Australia. It’s also human nature for things that are out of sight to be out of mind, which is what makes UV radiation so dangerous. This truth became the inspiration for our creative approach. If we can help young Australians see the ubiquitous nature of UV and the damage it was doing to them in a way that captures their imaginations, perhaps we can compel them to take the necessary precautions before they next venture out,” said Pawlak.

The ‘If you could see UV’ campaign by 303 MullenLowe for The Cancer Institute NSW.

“Young people are bombarded with a litany of content and getting their attention these days is a lot more difficult, arguably, than it ever was. A lot of the content that they’re consuming is a really high quality in terms of engagement. So rather than become enamored with just the science and the rational facts, we needed to lean into and borrow from the principles of storytelling and cinematic execution in order to get their attention, cut through the myriad of content that they’re consuming and then resonate with them beyond the moment where they interact with the communication. Getting that balance of the rational and the emotional, the hard hitting kind of rational facts and the emotional and engaging execution, getting that right was really key to that.”

More than half (57 per cent) of the target audience recognised the campaign when prompted and, of those, 76 per cent said they were motivated to improve their sun protection behaviours, 77 per cent intended to protect their skin and 70 per cent said they use sun protection when outdoors.

Mr Clarke said the results not only demonstrated the campaign effectiveness but also translate into behaviours that would help avert skin cancer later in life. The ‘If you could see UV’ campaign, was recently recognised with silver award for insight and strategic thinking and a bronze awards for driving positive change at the 2024 Australian Effie Awards for effective advertising. The campaign was also featured in the prestigious international Public Health Research and Practice journal.