Breast Cancer Now campaign focuses on the things left unsaid

The research and support charity wants to inspire a more candid conversation about living with breast cancer

By Imogen Watson 09/08/2024 9:01 am

Sometimes, it’s hard to find the words. For most of us, this occurs in trivial confrontations like asking your housemate to wash up more or letting a fling know this ‘situation-ship’ isn’t going anywhere.

But for people living with breast cancer, it goes much deeper than that. How can I explain to children why I’m not feeling well? Will my partner be hurt if I tell them I don’t feel like getting intimate? It’s often easier to shy away from talking candidly to avoid feeling like you’re being a bother or will be misunderstood.

Breast Cancer Now, the research and support charity, wants to inspire a more open conversation by addressing these unspoken issues via a series of live-action social ads, typographic videos and posters by BMB.

The ads put an emphasis on the thoughts and feelings that are kept hidden. In one social film, a real person living with breast cancer confronts the camera lens and declares, “I’m feeling pretty good” before going silent, while the auto-generating captions on social media videos reveal what she has left unsaid.

“If by good you mean absolutely exhausted all the time,” the subtitles reveal. “Not just from the chemo, just the stress of it all. What I wouldn’t give to think about something other than breast cancer. Just an evening where I feel myself again.”

A body of accompanying typographic ads initially appear stark. In one, a simple sentence – “Mummy will be okay” – is broken up by space and floating punctuation, hinting at more to be said.

Gradually, words emerge, filling in the sentence. “Mummy will start to lose her hair. I’m really worried about it, I just don’t know whether it’ll all be okay,” it reads. The posters present the broken sentence unfinished, leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks.

The campaign builds on Breast Cancer Now’s Real Talk campaign from last year, which broke the fourth wall to talk about things people living with cancer often don’t speak about.