Why our #TellYourGPInstead campaign will stand out from the crowd

This week, we're proud to launch our new campaign, ‘Tell Your GP Instead.’ But this isn't a normal cancer awareness campaign. Tell Your GP Instead is bold, innovative, and different. And we're going to tell you why.  

This campaign has been 18 months in the making. We want to encourage people to contact their GP if they have bowel cancer symptoms, including blood in their poo, bleeding from their bottom, a change in their pooing habits, or a lump or pain in their tummy. 

The campaign will be seen across adverts in newspapers, on the radio, and in out-of-home settings (e.g. bus stop posters), as well as online. 

So, why do we believe this campaign will stand out?

It's got some real attitude

We're trying to reach two groups — ‘stoics’ and ‘healthcare sceptics’ — who we believe are less likely to see their GP with symptoms. From there, we’ve ensured our campaign message resonates with these audiences as well as understand where these groups live. 'Stoics' tend to be in urban, more deprived areas, while ‘sceptics’ are more heavily weighted towards ethnic minority communities.

Slow and steady wins the race

Rather than squeezing the campaign into four to six weeks, like many campaigns do, we’re spreading ours out across nine months to start with. This campaign is running on a ‘pulse’ basis: two-weeks-on/two-weeks-off in key areas. We’re targeting local communities that we expect to have higher concentrations of the people we need to reach. Not only does this mean we can better target the right people and chip away at those deeply entrenched barriers, but it also mitigates the concern of putting too much pressure on GPs in one go.

Giving the right words

As well as telling people to contact their GP, we’re also encouraging them to ask about an ‘at-home test’. We know this to be a faecal immunochemical test (FIT). This test has been a gamechanger for bowel cancer diagnosis, allowing for much more effective referrals to endoscopy for further tests. Our co-creation groups loved the idea of FIT but not the language around it. So, we changed how we talked about it, so that we can provide people with the words to use in a conversation with their GP, while also reducing the worry of wasting their GP’s time.

Teamwork makes the dream work

As previously mentioned, those who have been affected by the disease as well as those who fit into our target audiences have been directly involved in the creation of this campaign. This has given us confidence that we've developed a campaign that can make a real difference in reducing the delays we know exist between when someone first notices they have a symptom and getting that first appointment in with the GP.  

We’ve also worked with several fantastic agencies, including Claremont Communications on our behaviour change strategy, Yonder Media on the media plan, and Nice & Serious to develop the creative concepts. 

Changing behaviour in a meaningful way is a big challenge, especially for something like bowel cancer. But it's a challenge that we're determined to meet. We don’t expect quick results but if we're successful, we know we can make a big difference to early diagnosis, which will ultimately save lives.

• Read more about our Tell Your GP Instead campaign
• Find out how you can support our campaign with our toolkit
• Learn more about at-home tests