Cancer Research adverts

[StripeyCover]

I just find it really that Cancer Research use a TV advert that shows real people breaking down and crying with their mother about their cancer diagnosis. It just feels so unnecessary to use this. And I feel like I am being emotionally manipulated in a really questionable way...

I also know someone in one of the adverts, I find her one quite empowering and shows humour in the worst of times. I think they are very real and very powerful. I also find them triggering as my son has had cancer and we are in the monitoring period post treatment. If they help find better cures then it is worth it. As long it is a short run campaign or it will lose the impact for donations but still be triggering.

ncbecause for every £1 spent, they make £3/£4

I am the chair of a very small, very new cancer charity. My fellow trustees are the mother and brother of someone who died aged just 19 from a particular cancer. We are fed up of seeing the ads! Because to us they go hand in hand with the profligacy of the bigger charities - the top salaries, the expensive offices, the constant mail shots etc. There was some recent research (cant remember where) but some of the biggest charities spend as little as 5p (yes, 5p) in the £ on their cause. Spending 75-95% on overheads is not uncommon.

I can appreciate that if you are mega giant like CRUK, then spending £1 to make £3 or £4 is potentially worth it, but I am not sure many people appreciate just how little of their donation actually does what it says on the tin.

Yes I am having treatment, but I find them needlessly upsetting. Some thought should go into how it makes people with cancer feel. It's causes me more alarm actually.

I lost my Mum in 2015, 4 weeks after she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. The McMillan nurse told us that Mums type of cancer only shows symptoms when it's too late.

The adverts really upset me, BUT I understand how these things are necessary.

Cancer can happen to any family.

I hate them too. I've had a DD set up for years to give to Cancer Research but I'm thinking of sending my money elsewhere. I hate their tugging at the heartstrings marketing. It feels grubby to me.

yolo you need to do some reading up on the new fundraising regulation. Learn just how much charities are regulated on contact, overheads etc. As for salaries, as you get larger & your responsibility increases, so does the salary. Come back to me in a few years when your charity is (hopefully) bigger and you can tell me how you 'get it now'. I trust you've read the Institute of Fundraisings & PRFA codes?

I used to work for a local charity in Sheffield. Large compared to others & we had an advert. Definitely nothing nice about my office. Gives me shivers to think of it

I understand that people find them upsetting but charities which involve research really need massive amounts donated to fund research. Research is a lengthy and costly process and they really do need vast sums for even the smallest breakthrough.

thank you goodeyebrowday I think I'm quite clued up really. What I question is the overheads... yes of course you need office space and salaried people and all that. But (and without naming names) does a charity seriously need custom built state of the art office buildings with every single office-based luxury you could require? Labs and scientists if you are research-focussed - yup. But an office is an office, as long as it is habitable and fit for purpose then I dont think it needs to be quite as fancy as some.

If anyone has ever actually been to the CRUK headquarters in London they will soon realise that the offices that house people who are doing fantastic jobs lobbying parliament, collecting stats and evidence about cancer, working on ways of diagnosing cancer earlier - including a whole nationwide team of facilitators who work on the ground with the NHS to improve cancer outcomes - is actually really cramped and not at all posh.

I have received research funding from them and have been to the HQ many times. I have also had cancer and my mother is currently dying from it.

80p in every pound goes to research. It is the largest and best cancer charity in the world and it has ambitious aims for 3 in 4 cancer patients to survive their illness, but they need to keep bringing the money in.

So yolo, that's an amazing thing you're doing, setting up a new charity. And that's how charities tend to start. Now... What if your charity does really well with fundraising, starts to bring in bigger and bigger sums of income. How are you going to decide how to spend it? How do you rely on volunteers (I'm a volunteer at a charity myself) to deliver the things you need to spend it on. How are you going to accommodate the growing volunteer numbers. Who's going to do your admin? Your taxes? Your Health and Safety? How are you deciding to spend your money? What processes are you going to implement to prove to your donors you're spending it well? What's the impact of the money that you've spent to improve that specific cancer outcome? Are you sure you've spent it in the right place? (Kids Company - yikes!) What about that fundraiser volunteer who was a bit random in the way they went about fundraising and broke the rules? You've done so well you've got 5000 supporters on your books. Are you sure you're adhering to data protection laws in the way you manage their data and contact them? You'd like to write an information booklet about that cancer. Are you sure it's up to date? You know that if you spent a couple of grand on a local advertising campaign, it's likely to generate 100,000s of thousands in the long run, and maybe some more volunteers - do you do it, or will you be guilty of 'overheads' and looking like a 'professional' charity?

The best charities all grew from little seedlings, of people like you who were passionate about what they wanted to do. And if you're successful, what comes with that growth is the need for an infrastructure that usually requires employed people, offices and things like IT.

Not all of it is great, but most of it is made up of small charities gone big, trying to manage spending the money in the best way but being expected to do so in the right way, therefore having an infrastructure that looks like business sometimes.

I will be thrilled if you come back in 15 years to tell us your charity is doing well. And would be surprised if it doesn't have some of the characteristics you hate of 'large charities'.

I find them deeply distressing as it takes me back to the minute when my son was diagnosed at Stage 4 after months of being pushed away by doctors. Though if I'm honest, that minute is replayed over and over again at the very mention of the word cancer. What is needed is clear advice on symptoms - for all of us, including doctors. (Now I know the symptoms, it was so obvious he had cancer). Thankfully he is in remission - and I thank the NHS and the cancer charities every day for all the work that has gone in to saving his life.

Thank you pom & zeek for putting it so clear & eloquently. I was starting to lose my patience.

Yes, Pombear, that is exactly that. Once a charity grows big enough to do something useful in the field of research (which is incredibly expensive - my grants are in the £millions) it needs the massive infrastructure that CRUK now has to manage that money appropriately and a leader of sufficient talent and experience to run the charity. All of that costs money. As it is, CRUK do so many other things as well as fund research.

Whilst the adverts are hard hitting (I would argue against them tugging on heartstrings like the Macmillan ones do) they reflect what is actually happening every minute of everyday to cancer patients, but they also reflect what work is happening in research.

pombear I understand exactly what you are saying, and hopefully there will come a time when we do have to spend some (some) donated money in order to increase growth. However I do believe we are unique in one way, which is that we have a direct route into a (partially) NHS funded programme. So the infrastructure is in place (you could argue against that I guess) but what I DO know is that we will not be funding anything other than pure research. Now, if I can blag something off a pharma company and get them to pay for some awareness activity - because I know they cant make a direct donation, that's one thing, but if we ever reach a stage where only 15p in the £ is going into our research then I do think it's wrong; not necessarily because if you are making megabucks then the numbers are so big that it makes a difference, but because people who donate - one off, or regular or whatever - dont want to pay for the overheads.

I don't mind them. I hate the fighting ones.
I will forever remember telling my mum I had breast cancer. She had been looking after my 3 DCs when I went to get a lump checked.
So, these adverts portray the reality of cancer and it's important that people see this.

For anyone prone to anxiety, adverts like this are awful. People need to be able to relax & forget about the horrible things in the world for a bit. Makes me angry actually. I've been through a close family member dying of cancer. I don't want to be reminded when I'm chilling in front of the TV.

People need to be able to relax & forget about the horrible things in the world for a bit.

Sorry but as someone who is currently going through cancer treatment (and not for the first time) I don't get the luxury of such 'time to forget' and 'not be reminded'

But I think you have to be able to have some safe Space where it's not rammed at you.

I don't know about you hive but there was no such safe space when I was undergoing treatment. Cancer pretty much occupied every waking moment.
Three years since the end of treatment, it's no longer the first thing in my head when I wake up, but it does tend to lurk.
Having had a fairly aggressive form of breast cancer, I'm really just glad to be waking up!

The child ones bother me because so little of their funding is devoted to paediatric cancer, which claimed the life of my 9-year-old daughter 4 years ago.

I totally agree expat, and I don't understand why. I can't believe it's four years since you lost your wee girl.

They say it's because paediatric cancer is 'rare'. It's the second leading cause of death in children behind accidents.

I,think,they are horrible and give completely the wrong message, building on fear and creating health anxiety.
Most breast cancers, for example, are now treatable and curable. The treatment isn't particularly nice but it's not awful either.
Most prostate cancers are a chronic condition that men live with rather than die from.
Most uterine cancers are curable.
HPV vaccine has reduced incidence of cervical cancer.
Most skin cancers are curable and low risk.
There have been incredible advances in the treatment of childhood cancers.
Cancer treatment in U.K. is good. Some very expensive or unproven treatment is not available but that is because of drug company costs and chronic underfunding of NHS.
There are far worse diseases than many cancers. We never hear the positives.

Cancer is a bitch.

The adverts give a little insight into what families are facing day in day out.

My mum has cancer. Her scant be cured. They can't give her a prognosis. She is having to go through chemo without knowing if it will improve things, make no difference or if at the end it will have progressed further despite the treatment.

I totally agree with the poster who said taxes should be paying for this research. But sadly they aren't so the charity shows the realistic side of things to show what money goes towards for those in a position to donate.