Cancer support organisation conveys a much-needed message

Ad Nut appreciates the simple but powerful wordplay in this new campaign in Australia.

With an elegant reversal of expectation about a common phrase, Havas Australia and Canteen, a cancer support organisation for young people, instantly communicate a deeply meaningful message.

Facing cancer is too often bound up in a vocabulary of brave struggle that inadvertently ends up isolating and even blaming the patient. If your cancer didn't go into remission, maybe you didn't maintain a positive enough attitude. If your treatments are getting you down, maybe you're not fighting hard enough. 

Sickening stuff when you think about it, right?

Facing cancer is about getting the right treatment according to medical science and about getting support for the emotional toll the disease can impose. The latter part, too often ignored, can be significant. Simply facing a diagnosis can hard enough, let alone working through painful treatments (if one is lucky enough that one's cancer is treatable) or facing up to a terminal diagnosis (if it's not).

The first step toward tending to emotional needs is admitting you have them. Which starts by recognising that you don't have to "stay strong". In fact, you have to do the exact opposite.

See, it took Ad Nut more than 150 words to explain what this ad did in five. Excellent work!

The campaign is now live and will run through the end of the year across OOH, video, social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitch), as well as radio and Spotify.

CREDITS

Client – Canteen Australia
Chief Executive Officer: Peter Orchard
Head of Marketing and Communications: Kerry Kalcher
Agency – Havas Village Australia

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