A new campaign from Aflac aims to be more than just a one-off awareness push. Instead, the supplemental health insurance company is hoping it’ll become a full-blown “pop culture phenomenon,” according to Ines Rodriguez Gutzmer, Aflac’s chief communications officer.
The “Check for Cancer” campaign, which launched Wednesday, is doing so by connecting the common checkerboard pattern to the concept of undergoing regular cancer screenings.
The pattern is “in fashion, in furniture, in décor, in the NASCAR flag—when you start looking, it’s everywhere," Rodriguez Gutzmer said in an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing. “We want everyone to see the check pattern and say, ‘OK, get checked. Check for cancer.'”
She suggested that the easily remembered association could therefore create “a movement,” which will undoubtedly help with Aflac’s “very, very ambitious” goal for the campaign: increasing cancer screenings by 10% over the next 10 years.
With that in mind, she said, along with monitoring visitors to the campaign’s website and other engagement metrics typical of awareness campaigns, Aflac will also be tracking its Wellness Benefit filings—which offer policyholders cash payments for staying on top of preventive screenings—and examining screening data from the American Cancer Society, a longtime partner.
The awareness and education push represents Aflac’s first “all-encompassing, integrated multichannel campaign from a corporate social responsibility perspective,” according to Rodriguez Gutzmer.
It largely came about as a result of Aflac’s decades of experience offering cancer insurance and its annual Wellness Matters surveys, all of which have given the company mass amounts of data on the growing rates of cancer and its widespread effects on patients and their families, communities and workplaces—and have therefore reinforced the importance of staying up to date with recommended screenings.
“The stats get worse and worse every year about cancer,” Rodriguez Gutzmer said, as Aflac estimates that 1 in 3 Americans will develop cancer in their lifetimes, but more than 90% have put off getting a regular checkup or recommended screening.
“The reasons are multiple: I don’t have the time; I cannot get time off work; I’m embarrassed; I don’t want to know; I’m fearful,” she said. “But whatever the reason is, it’s just not good, because the reality is that in the face of uncertainty, what really helps us as a line of defense is getting checked.”
The data also influenced the campaign’s target audience, which skews younger than traditional cancer-focused campaigns.
“The new face of cancer is very young,” the exec said, highlighting increasing rates of cancer diagnoses among people in their 30s and 40s and, thus, the need for younger people to start familiarizing themselves with recommended screening guidelines and “just getting checked if they feel like something is not right.”
The “Check for Cancer” campaign has recruited popular sports broadcaster Erin Andrews to its cause; Andrews was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 38, was successfully treated and has since become a vocal advocate for regular screening.
A campaign video made its official debut on ESPN during the college football Aflac Kickoff Game on Aug. 31. It follows a woman as she goes about her day, passing repeated examples of the checkered pattern via a chessboard, nail art, a kite, a theater marquee and more, along with overheard turns of phrase like “check, please” and “check that out.”
“The reminders are everywhere,” the commercial concludes, as the woman arrives at a doctor’s office and checks in for a cancer checkup—all puns very much intended.
In addition to the video, the campaign’s online push includes a wealth of digital and social media assets, including a website that features information about cancer screening guidelines as well as tools to assess cancer risk and find nearby screening locations. Offline, the campaign will get its message out via billboards, event sponsorships and community activations in certain markets—like “people walking in checkered jumpsuits in the streets of Boston,” per Rodriguez Gutzmer.
“We are really putting this in the hands of the community. We are going to make this very grassroots so that it becomes a movement,” she said. “It’s not going to happen in a week or two weeks or three months—it’s going to take time, but we believe that we’re going to get there because of the activations and because there are people committed to the wellness of the communities that we live in.”
Meanwhile, as part of the campaign’s heavy focus on social media to reach its younger target audience, Aflac is challenging people to post photos of checkerboard patterns they come across, tagging the company and using the hashtag “#CheckForCancer.” For each post, the insurer will donate $5 to the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, up to a total of $1 million.
Along with encouraging people to participate in the social media bonanza, Rodriguez Gutzmer concluded with a simple call to action: “Just go get checked. Just really take charge of your health, and do your cancer screenings. Do not avoid those."