To be sick and tired of the sight of tv Cancer ads???

[TillyMW]

I don’t mean to be dismissive of all the good work these cancer organisations undoubtedly do, but I am sick of the sight of the ubiquitous TV cancer ad!

I’m not sure if it’s just that they are more noticeable to me now I’ve been through the cancer treatment mill - 6 months of chemo and 2 ops followed by daily radiotherapy etc etc, but there seems to be no respite from cancer ads. Have they increased in number/frequency of airing, or is it really just me?

It is difficult enough to have some time free of thinking about cancer because of the anxiety such a diagnosis and the treatment itself causes, and because of the lingering ongoing pain, as well as the havoc it has wreaked on my body, but watching afternoon tv makes it all but impossible to get it out of my headspace.

I think I might be being just a bit extra ranty as my poor much loved dog was put to sleep yesterday and I’m feeling overwhelmingly sad with regular doses of fed upness with these damned ads.

OK, rant over (until the next ad anyway)!

Am I the only one who finds them depressing / irritating / too pervasive? Thanks in advance for your time.

IBlue blue zoo - I’m not going to talk about my specific job as it’s really outing. But happy to give you any info you need about the actual issue*

Well you’ll understand if I don’t take the word of an internet random uncorroborated.

You’ve already said the gov doesn’t fund cancer research, which it does. It just doesn’t fund cr charities.

You also seem determined you are right and nobody else’s point is valid. My experience at the bench of these research charities is they make a big song and dance about all this money they’re raising, then pay the scientists crap and make them reapply for their jobs every year or so.

I bet the fundraisers and ad people have better job security.

And as for macmillans tricks such as funding nurses for 3 years, then withdrawing but leaving all their branding, misleading the public into thinking they are paying when it’s the NHS....

I hate them. Struggling with possible melanoma at the minute and the room goes silent when people are watching them with me. I almost start to forget then boom ‘1 in 2 people will die of cancer!!!’. Thanks for reminding me my chances!

‘But if it’s not, isn’t it great that so many people are fighting for research for treatments and cures?‘

Of course it is.

But that’s sod all to do with standards in advertising and making effective choices which don’t piss off those living with or after cancer (a stage of life where daytime telly can loom large)

@Strawberrypancakes "makes me so passionate about how damaging threads like this can be to vital research"
Really?
I have no idea who you are. Perhaps you are young, passionate and enthusiastic.
I was, many years and a lifetime ago when I worked with cancer charities ( namely Imperial Cancer Research Fund), thats how old I am.
I worked across the board, from researchers to fund raisers, to top management.
I know where the vast majority of the money went, a HUGE industry has built up around charitable giving.
My mum died with breast cancer, my sister died with leukaemia, i am dying with breats cancer which has metastasized.
Do not tell me that posting how I feel about advertising is damaging your pay packet. Just dont.
If you actually do any research, then I apologise

FFS stop looking at the “bigger picture” all the time and look at your own individual behaviour now on this thread. You have completely dismissed the feelings of real cancer patients on this thread. People who have reported being in tears by these adverts have been completely dismissed by you. You’ve taken it to ridiculous levels by accusing them of not wanting to cure cancer because they express upset about the content of the adverts.

Yes, we need to find cures for this disease and that involves funding; and often the most effective fundraising techniques are a little bit ruthless. That doesn’t mean we have to shit all over individual people when they express their feelings.

‘I’ve also been touched by cancer‘

I take it this means that you are not yourself living with or after cancer

Do you think advertising is blindly pursued without adequate return and market research

One could argue that the recent trend in more hardhitting adverts is due to giver fatigue, in other words the advertising is just running faster to stay in the same place, Alice style

Perhaps a review of advertising tactics is in order. A place to start might be the views on this thread.

to everyone going through this.

I work for one of the largest Cancer charities and yes the money wasted is enormous.

I refuse to donate to any charity that advertises on TV, especially those that exploit suffering in order to make money and those that use celebrities saying 'I've seen for myself' because I doubt they spent their own money going out to 'sightsee for themself'.

I think these adverts are aimed at vulnerable people such as the elderly and and those with mental health issues.

My sister was in the Royal Marsden in London in the 90's they had a bespoke woven carpet with the logo every couple of metres. Absolute waste of money that no could have been better spent on care or research. That was when I decided that cancer charities were not going to get any more of my money.

I think all big charities have very high overheads and are paying high salaries to their execs out of money donated for research or care.

Cancer Research UK CEO earns around £240,000 per year and about 40% of donations go on salaries and fundraising etc

I do donate to charity but now all the money and time I can spare go to local charities with benefits for local people. i'm certainly not helping to pay his wages

Strawberrypancakes Advertising budget will be entirely within the scope of the ‘in every pound’ ratio.
Yeah the 40p in every £ that isn't spent on care or research.

There are ways of checking how much each charity uses for 'expenses'. Unfortunately to get the full details you have to either sign up to get hassled to death by being added to their mailing list or pay for it.

I agree with a lot of pp.

I've lost my grandmother and grandfather to cancer. My aunty died of cancer when I was 7 and my mum died of lung cancer when I was 23.

4 years later we're going through the whole ordeal again with my dad.

They bring up a lot of pain and I wish they would just stop. I know it's for a good cause and I do give to charity a lot.

Honestly, I think people are just fed up. It seems everyone wants money for something. Give to cancer, to water aid, Syria appeal, Easter eggs, clothes, children in Africa, adopt a panda, it's never ending, always around tea time too after hard day at work.

The only cancer advert I like is with the boy and the doctor. "Head shoulder's cheese and toes!" That's a positive one and makes me smile. I think if advertisers were more positive, happy etc they'd get a better response. If they keep getting harder, bleaker and more grumsome they're just going to turn people off / push them away.

I don't like the cancer ones, especially the one featuring children. It breaks my heart. But I know that if I did start doing the monthly subscription they would ask me why I subscribed, then when they found out it was because of that advert my donation would probably be spent on more adverts. Plus I think that if a complete cure for all cancers were to be found, then people like me who funded the research would never be able to afford it. My dad passed from lung cancer. It took him in 5 months. From diagnosis to death. And even after he'd refused treatment the doctors were pushing him to have experimental/trial treatments.

I meant that when the cure is found (funded by charitable donations) then the cure will be sold back to us via whichever big pharmaceutical company develops the pill at a price most of us can't afford.
People with cancer are desperate, relatives of people with cancer are desperate. These companies know this, and they will exploit it.

I would never contribute anything to charities on these adverts, if people want to give to charity, give it straight to the charity. There are companies making millions from these 'only £2 a month' sob stories.

onetrauma that’s a horrible thought. I really don’t think so. More healthy people who are able to work and pay taxes are surely worth more to a government (if we’re looking at it from a really cold perspective) than someone sick and dying before their time.

I can see why advertising is necessary, but like PP it's the nature of them that is wearing me down at the moment. The 'battle' metaphor and the 'cancer doesn't care about you...', yeah, I bloody know.

I used to do RfL every single year, I can't even face that this year because of the crowds of people talking about it, and all the positive 'kick cancer's arse!' is draining. I applaud anyone who raises money for cancer research, I really do, but it sometimes feels like there's no escaping it. I'm genuinely becoming too negative around it, it's almost like it's an inevitability. So many people I care about have had it or died from it, despite how hard they 'battled'.

While acknowledging how difficult it is to watch these ads when you're suffering from cancer or nursing a terminally ill member of your family (and I've felt that myself), what do people expect these charities to do?

So much money is needed for research and support. And these ads work. Believe me, they wouldn't be made in the way they are, if they didn't. A LOT of work will have gone into analysing what brings in the money, and a charity can't afford not to do what works, even if it turns their stomach sometimes. My own personal bugbear is the breathy sad and sentimental tone of the narrators. But unfortunately for me, the heartstring tugging is what gets people to open up their bank accounts.

We all want the science to cure us or our loved ones, and if we get these ads banned, that becaomes less likely. People don't like chuggers on the street trying to persuade them to donate, either. They don't like people wanting their holiday to climb Kilimajaro to be subsidised by sponsorship. They're annoyed if someone knocks at their door at dinnertime, with a collection envelope.
What's left? Charity shops alone?

Children have three? Medicines approved for there treatment yet they are used in a hell of a lot of adverts they need more research treatments and medicine

@saraclara I have no issue with advertising. I DO have an issue with the emotive language used. The implication that 'we' can kick cancers arse. Like a pp, some of the ads hit harder than others - not in a good way, in a ODFOD way.

An advert that said "100.000 people were diagnosed with cancer last year. Thanks to your donations, 80,000 were successfully treated. Please donate as much as you can, and we will do our best to find more treatments, more cures" would see me reach for my credit card.
Its not the adverts per se, it is the message they send. Over emotive and hurtful.