to think Cancer Research should rethink some of their marketing?

[MrsCarriePooter]

This is a fairly mild AIBU but interested in what you think.

We were in our local Cancer Research shop this morning and in the window they had a big poster of a woman who had survived breast cancer, but the wording was something about "Vanessa wasn't going to let cancer beat her". I said to the volunteer insider when I was paying that I thought that was a bit offensive, as though those who die from cancer just had decided to roll over and "let cancer beat" them. Was I just being overtouchy? Having had relatives die of cancer I know I could be. The volunteer said "she'd pass my views" on to the area manager.

Now i'm off to drown my sorrows with wine and a kebab because I hate today.I hope theres one day a cure for osteosarcoma to help children like my brother

I wonder what 'not battling' with cancer looks like? Is it someone who just sits on the sofa and says 'oh shit, I've got cancer, I'm going to die so I'll just sit here until I do'?

I hate the cancer adverts with a real hatred. Yes they do need to raise money, but I don't think they need to do it by tapping into real experiences that real people (lots of them) who might see their advert, have had. Because what good does that do for those people who have died already and their families?

I would add that my mother was an oncology nurse until she retired, and she said one of the most important things they did was to give patients "permission" to stop treatment, because some people reach the end of the road and nothing is going to actually cure them, but they feel they have to keep fighting because of the lexicon of cancer.

I am on maternity leave at the mo so not in the loop at the office. One of our staff was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few months ago. One of our colleagues who is a good friend of mine came for a coffee recently and said "x isn't doing so good, she said she feels like stopping the chemo and I said to her, you have to keep fighting". I replied, "why does she have to keep fighting? If she can't do it anymore she should feel she can stop." My friend meant no harm, she had just been so indoctrinated with the "correct" response to cancer that you must fight, fight, fight that she thought she was saying the right thing.

YANBU. This book is written by a fantastic author who was diagnosed with breast cancer and refutes the positive thinking stance.

Thanks Peachy I wish that more charities had that attitude. I don't get why they can't see that most people donating to a cancer charity will have been affected by it and don't want reminding of how dreadful it is. Chances are that those who haven't won't bother to donate so the emotive ads do little other than upset those who are supporting them. With potentially negative effects.

I also support Candlelighters which is also a specialist child cancer charity and there is none of this maudlin, sentimental stuff. All their marketing info is about the research they are funding and the treatments they are working to develop. It is all positive and focused on the future, which is what I want to see and hear about and where I want my donations to go.

I sometimes wonder who the cancer charities think they are talking to.
1 in 3 of us gets cancer now.
There can't be a single person in the country who hasn't experienced cancer directly or indirectly. I mean, who are they trying to kid?

I've just copied and pasted this from my junior hons dissertation (getting a bit dusty now). I hope it's not too boring; I remember finding this area really interesting (and shocking) at the time.

'Another area in which war metaphors are employed is in the fight against disease. In her book Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, Susan Sontag noted that the military metaphor first came to be used in this context in the 1880s, when bacteria were first discovered and described as ?invading? and ?infiltrating? (2002: 67). Sontag?s book focuses for the most part on the metaphors of cancer, and the military metaphor appears to play a large part in the characterisation of this particular disease: ?every physician and every attentive patient is familiar with, if perhaps inured to, this military terminology? (Sontag 2002: 65). The cancer itself is seen as an invading force, in phrases such as ?malignant tumours invade even when they grow very slowly,? which has its origins in a medical textbook (Sontag 2002: 65). Treatment, therefore, must be equally aggressive; Sontag notes that radiotherapy uses metaphors of aerial warfare, e.g. ?bombardment?, and that the aim is to ?kill? cancer cells (2002: 66).
The metaphor of war in the fight against illness can also have negative consequences, according to Sontag:

??the move from the demonisation of the illness to the attribution of fault to the patient is an inevitable one, no matter if patients are thought of as victims. Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.? (2002: 97)

As such, Sontag?s research led her to believe that the war metaphors used in the treatment of cancer led the patient to be stigmatised along with the ?enemy? illness that inhabits them.'

I think it stems from fear. People are understandably terrified of cancer; I suppose that, subconsciously, it's comforting to think that it won't happen to you, because you'd fight it. It gives the illusion of control, I suppose.

v interesting. 1880s! i assumed it would be more recent.

That guardian link doesn't work but I think it was meant to point to an article about the book I recommend Smile or Die (another poster mentioned Barbara Whatshername who was the author but I can't spell the name).

There was also a good bit on the PM show on R4 recently with a woman who lost her husband. She was saying how they never spoke about the fact that her husband was dying, no-one was ever honest about how long he actually had left. There is just generally a lack of rational language surrounding death.

like everyone on here, I have had family die of various cancers - MIL to pancreatic, dear friends to stomach and bowel cancers etc - and my best friend in the world had had breast cancer twice. She is a survivor at the moment. I TRULY do not want to cause offence, but I have run the Race for Life 4 times now and raised a lot of money. I started running it for my friend with breast cancer, and this year she had recovered enough from chemo to fly in and be there on the day to cheer me on which was amazing. We held a silence for those lost, and the majority of people had signs on their backs remembering those who had died. Now I'm being told I'm doing the wrong thing and actually causing offence and insult by doing this. I thought I was trying to help as did my friends and colleagues who raised thousands of pounds and tried to raise the profile of this horrible disease.
I'm sorry to all those who are offended by those who have tried to help.
Seriously, and genuinely, if this is not the way to go, then what can people like me do to help?

Oh, Mrs deVere, I just welled up when I read your post. Don't know what to say, the pain must have been unbearable. So so sorry. My sister died from cancer and it was goddam awful.

I'm so glad you've voiced my and many other people's feelings. I've just finished treatment for cancer too. Sometimes I feel guilty about being anxious about the prognosis. I was on tenterhooks before each cycle of chemo waiting to see if the blood counts were good enough to get the next lot of chemo. Every little side effect had me desparately worried that I wouldn't be able to get more chemo and I've moaned about all the niggly things to my husband. But apparently I've been terrifically 'positive' to my friends and this and my age will ensure my survival. What rubbish! I used to think I'm too negative,but I feel better for reading your post and having my feelings voiced by someone else. I'm sure that's not exactly your intention, but thankyou anyway - you've helped one cancer patient already.

MrsDeVere. I have no words really. Just that I remembered that I did see the photos of your beautiful daughter. I am so sorry that she, you and your family had to go through this and that the very organisations/people who should have been there to support you through your pain made it worse.

Vanessa wasn't going to let cancer beat her

WTF! It makes it sound as though the sufferer has a choice about whether they beat cancer or not.

I find that quite offensive.

It just seems crazy that marketing techniques are used indiscriminately, regardless of their effect on the people whom the charity is supposed to help.

Actually, when the animal testing angle was discussed on LBC, people were saying it's better to support the smaller cancer charities, or local ones.

dementedma, I think it's about the messages that are sent in these events, someone else said that one year they had a respectful silence (similar to what you did) whereas the next year it was all cheering and celebrating for the victorious (which was upsetting if the person you were running for had 'lost').

I have sponsored friends running for Race for Life. I don't think you are doing the wrong thing, but I think it's worth some charities reflecting on the messages they send out, which are part of something larger in society. I don't think most people were objecting to the concept of raising money for cancer charities, although again, people have their preferred charities as well.

YANBU I lost a dear friend to cancer this year, she "fought" so hard. I don't think anyone could have tried harder but she still "lost". To suggest that she didn't try hard enough is insulting. Well done for pointing this out.

good, but very sad, post.

my mum died from cancer and she fought like mad. and she certainly didnt deserve to die.

i hope cancer research will rethink their campaign after this thread.

YANBU. I survived cancer but my friend did not. Neither of us battled harder or didn't battle enough. It was simply luck. I too hate this battle-on/fight it lingo.

It isn't the first time I've heard/read a discussion of this nature. I thought the cancer charities had changed their approach by now.

I haven't read all of this but I find much of the agressive "marketing" by charities these days just too much. Its like they are run by people who wish they could have won the APprentice but had to settle for marketing for a charity instead. I have worked in the voluntary sector and feel that the intense competition for funds can make some people lose sight of what the point is.

2 particularly offensive direct mailings I have received in the past were one from a breast cancer charity on Mother's Day which basically said - Happy Mothers day but not for some as they will be dying from breast cancer - very upsetting for me as my mother died from cancer at a young age & one from a children's charity which looked as if it was marketing for some kind of babycare catalogue but turned out to be something about child abuse - sent to me when my DC was a year old.

In both cases I wrote to the Chairperson of the Trustees of the charity in question to complain.

I think evrybody needs to question the motivation behind this kind of marketing and what the money is being used for. And especially the trustees of these charities - if you feel that its ok to get money by causing shock and offense then maybe you need to think again.

I have to add that because of the aboe two campaigns I have stopped giving any money to either of the charities in question.

YANBU I hate the advertising campaign.

When I had breast cancer I had everyone telling me how brave I was all the time and I felt a bit of a phony. To be honest, I felt braver when I battled depression a few years before the cancer, but no-one called me brave then.

I remember reading an interview of a young boy who had an illness, can't remember for sure if it was cancer or not, and he used this metaphor "Being brave is like running into a house on fire to save someone. I'm not brave, I just happened to be in the burning house and tried to run out."

Some very moving posts on here. That boy's quote is extraordinary, whethergirl.