Excellence in Multichannel Communications

Summary of work

Lung cancer is responsible for around 25% of all cancer deaths in the UK, with patients facing poor survival rates. It usually has few early symptoms, and so by the time people seek a diagnosis, the cancer is already advanced.

Pilot NHS Targeted Lung Health Checks, serving high-risk populations in England, are aiming to improve early diagnosis rates. AstraZeneca wanted to help boost uptake of these screenings, to diagnose more lung cancers early.

To do so, Edelman first needed to understand why more people weren’t already attending their screenings. Our research revealed that while they were largely aware of their at-risk status, they thought they knew their own bodies well enough to sense when there was a problem.

Our response was to develop a creative campaign that showed why we shouldn’t always wait to listen to our bodies, using eye-catching optical illusions. We then developed different iterations that were delivered across a range of channels, from out-of-home advertising to geotargeted Facebook and Google ads, to reach our target demographic in places we knew they frequented.

Results to date show we have already helped generate tangible behaviour change, with increased screening uptake rates being reported by the participating NHS sites.

Judges' comments

The Check your Lungs was a good campaign, with an efficient use of the budget. It was quite clever in the way that it was based on real insight around a lack of awareness in this area. Overall it was a large budget campaign that demonstrated brilliant results and outcomes with true impact.