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#PancreasNotPenis campaign: Your thoughts
Read all about the impact and success of our most recent awareness campaign #PancreasNotPenis and have your say on what we do next with our supporter survey!
A PCA survey found that 23% of people misidentified the pancreas as a penis. In response, we developed the campaign “This isn’t what you think it is! #PancreasNotPenis”, with the ambition of educating the public about the pancreas and raising awareness about the signs and symptoms of the disease.
The Campaign in Numbers
Due to the tongue-in-cheek nature of the #PancreasNotPenis campaign there was little surprise that it had the most significant impact online and across social media. People were very keen to get involved by sharing their own posts, posting on popular sites such as Reddit and by using our hashtag: #PancreasNotPenis
A huge boost to our #PancreasNotPenis campaign was the support shown by several well-known public figures, social media influencers and patrons of ours, including Nick Hewer, Dr Ellie Cannon, Jacob White and Mathew L Carter. All of whom were committed to sharing our message and allowed us to reach a considerable number of their followers.
As usual, our very own loyal supporters played a significant part in our social media success, once again proving just how dedicated they are to improving awareness in any way they can.
In total PCA reached 1,292,000 people across social media during WPCD!
The campaign also received numerous pieces of coverage on WPCD, including articles in the Daily Express, Sunday Mail Online and Express Online. We also received several features on radio stations including The Breeze and SAM FM, due to brilliant support of Rob D’Ovidio and Celador Radio.
How was the #PancreasNotPenis campaign received?
There were of course slight apprehensions about using #PancreasNotPenis as our main hashtag of the campaign, especially when aiming to reach a large number of people. However, the overall response to the campaign has been overwhelmingly positive.
“#PancreasNotPenis genius campaign. Well done @OfficialPCA” – @CallumBergin
Like most bold campaigns, it’s expected that you will also receive some less positive feedback and we were prepared for this. We found that the two main areas of disapproval stemmed from those that had seen the campaign in person and weren’t fully aware of our intentions, and those that thought we had altered the appearance of the pancreas just to be controversial.
“Fab campaign, well done to all involved very clever” – Talia Grace Jenkins
Once we had explained why we had drawn the comparison to a penis and expressed that our intentions were solely to improve awareness, most people tended to later approve and applauded us for taking much needed action.
In total 89% of people that saw the campaign felt it was a good way to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer.
Was the Campaign a Success?
When brainstorming and developing any of our campaigns here at PCA, we always ensure that improving awareness (and early diagnosis) is kept at the forefront. It is therefore a good way for us to measure how successful this campaign has been.
Following WPCD and #PancreasNotPenis we released another survey to assess the impact that the campaign had on the people that had seen it.
- 82% felt that they were more aware of pancreatic cancer.
- 86% said that it had prompted them to learn more about the pancreas.
- 89% said that it had prompted them to learn more about the pancreatic cancer.
With the campaigns main objectives improving public knowledge and to encourage a conversation surrounding this often-undiscussed disease, the above stats prove to us that it did just that.
What the future holds for #PancreasNotPenis
We don’t want WPCD to be the end of ‘This isn’t what you think it is! #PancreasNotPenis’ and the response that we’ve received, not just on WPCD but in the following weeks has meant that the campaign will almost certainly be returning.
We are currently exploring several ways in which to expand the concept, however as of right now the exact direction is yet to be determined. If you have any ideas on where you would like to see the pancreas or have any recommendations for the campaign itself please do let us know, we would love to hear from you.
Have your say!
Please help us by completing our very brief survey based on your opinions of the campaign.
