'Cancer TV did shock me but, that's fine, that was the point'

I am not one that watches much TV, but even I must profess that I stumbled across the current Irish Cancer Society promoted commercial. I am sure you have caught sight of it on your own travels through TV land. It is only seconds long but involves an impressionable person voicing to camera 'I want to get cancer'.

I nearly choked on my coffee when I seen it first. A printed version of this teaser advert was also produced and published in a national newspaper title and within other publications also. This advertisement was then followed the very next day by another printed variant which read: “I want to get cancer and wring its bloody neck'. This second advertisement featured the Irish Cancer Society logo.

The first 'teaser' based television advertising campaign I can remember was back in the eighties and the snappy piece you got then was 'Big Ed loves Mona'. Of course, nobody had a clue what this was all about until the awful truth was revealed. Big Ed was some sort of cartoon character and he was a big fan of Mona yogurt. In essence, a teaser campaign, also known as a pre-launch campaign, is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic, challenging advertisements that anticipate a larger, full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event.
So getting back to our “I want to get cancer” piece. Did it shock me? Yes of course it did. It was designed to. To quote from another well-known advertisement, ‘It does exactly what it says on the tin’. But that last strap line

 

 

I just got you to read is from a different TV advert and that advertisement contains zero shock elements. As you have just helped attest with me here, the latter got its message across very successfully and yet there was no need for anyone to 'get cancer' in the process, was there?

The gurus who design, write and produce these teaser advertising campaigns will argue that in their own defence, they are successful in what they set out to do. They generate discussion, they raise debate, they can also get free, albeit editorial television airtime. They even win over editorial column inches in the print media, just what I am precisely doing right now. Any free advertising is good advertising, it's all good right? What can possibly go wrong?
Teaser style advertising won't work for everything. It can't, it is not of that dimension and indeed never was. In certain circumstances this style of marketing can and does cause distress. I'm not writing this to cause any slight to the custodian of this national campaign. The Irish Cancer Society do sterling work and must be commended for same, no contest. But they are a voluntary organisation and receive less than 5% government funding. They rely on the generosity of the public for funding. When you operate a business model like this, it doesn't take rocket science to be acutely aware and mindful of the hand that feeds you.

Cancer is an extremely emotive subject. It demands the respect that it so begrudgingly deserves. This respect should not morph itself into a spoken piece broadcast to camera where the subject discloses that they want to get cancer. I do of course take the point that this is 'take 1' of a teaser campaign but unless

 

I have the Irish Cancer Society's head of communications, Gráinne O’Rourke sitting beside me on my couch in my living room, as 'take 1' airs, I am not to know what is coming next, if anything? I simply see a very pleasant individual voicing to camera that they wish they could get cancer. I am not being fed the full picture here and my mind and emotions can only deal with the now, not the next.

My name is Aidan Murphy, from Dunshaughlin, County Meath and I have got inoperable Gastro Cancer. I genuinely and respectfully pray to dear God that you reading this never get what I have.

You can keep track of Aidan's progress by visiting his blog at aidanmurphy.me