Our #GetOnARoll campaign wins award at the Charity Times Awards 2023
Thursday 21 September 2023
We're delighted to announce our groundbreaking #GetOnARoll campaign has been named Corporate National Partnership of the Year with a Retailer at the Charity Times Awards 2023.
This award recognises the active involvement of a retail organisation through a partnership with a charity, which has had a positive impact towards the charity's work.
The announcement comes just a few months after #GetOnARoll won Charitable Campaign of the Year at the Communiqué Awards 2023.
#GetOnARoll is our ground-breaking campaign working with supermarkets and brands to print bowel cancer symptoms on toilet roll packaging. Putting this vital information in the bathroom where people might experience red flag symptoms like blood in their poo could be lifesaving.
This campaign was sparked last summer when Marks & Spencer (M&S) employee and bowel cancer patient advocate Cara Hoofe pitched her idea of putting bowel cancer symptoms on M&S own brand toilet roll packaging to CEO Stuart Machin, via an employee suggestion scheme.
M&S understood the importance of spreading symptoms awareness far and wide. Together we used the launch of the partnership to ask supporters and the public to call on other supermarkets to follow M&S's lead and #GetOnARoll.
The timing coincided with an increase in media and public attention on bowel cancer following the announcement by Cara's friend and Bowel Cancer UK patron, Dame Deborah James, that she was entering end of life care.
Ten partners have so far joined the campaign and launched their new toilet roll packaging, including Aldi, Asda, B&M, Co-op, M&S, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, and Andrex®, bringing lifesaving information into more than one in three households in the UK.
Genevieve Edwards, Chief Executive at Bowel Cancer UK, says: "As we look to plan for the next year of our #GetOnARoll campaign, we couldn't be prouder of what we have collectively achieved. Winning the prestigious Charity Times Award for Corporate National Partnership of the Year with a Retailer, a highly competitive award, is the icing on the cake!
"Our collaboration with leading supermarkets and brands, sparked by Cara Hoofe and M&S, has been instrumental in turning every bathroom visit into a potentially lifesaving moment. We couldn't have done it without our partners, and I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude for their unwavering support in making this campaign a reality."
Cara Hoofe, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016, says: "It started as a simple idea, but thanks to the support of M&S, Bowel Cancer UK, the other partners, and everyone who supported the campaign, we've successfully brought crucial symptom awareness into millions of households across the UK. I couldn't be prouder of the campaign, and I'm thrilled that we've won our second award."
- Find out more about our award-winning #GetOnARoll campaign
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Image above: Head of Marketing and Communications, Nicolette Barton (left) and Marks & Spencer employee and bowel cancer patient advocate Cara Hoofe (right).