Men United - I've joined the team

Prostate Cancer UK’s new Men United campaign is brilliant.

If you haven’t seen it, the concept is that Bill Bailey is recruiting for a team of men called ‘Men United’ to help win the fight against Prostate Cancer. 

I’ll let Bill explain….

 

Apart from being integrated across television, print media and digital, I think the campaign is a real winner for a number of reasons: 

·         It’s “unashamedly masculine”: By using a sport / football analogy, it’s memorable and resonates with its target audience – men. I’m sure I’m not alone in turning to ‘football’ as my default conversation starter when I’m in male company. This campaign unashamedly focuses on this common ground amongst most men and is all the more memorable and effective because of it.

·         Incredibly simple: This campaign has one clear aim – raise awareness of prostate cancer amongst men. It’s not over complicated with fundraising asks or reams of information. It just wants men to take part in a quiz as a first step to understanding more about their risk of prostate cancer. One nudgte at a time. 

·         Comparison to breast cancer: The ads and PR cleverly make the comparison to the breast cancer movement – “It’s time men united together to fight prostate cancer in the same way women have united to fight breast cancer.” In the clearest of terms, this sets the vision for the campaign in a way that everyone can relate to and also gives a sense of prostate cancer’s significance.

·         The right celebrity ambassadors: Using Bill Bailey supported by ex-football players and even Sir Michael Parkinson, who suffered from the disease, only heighten its impact. These ‘men’ perfectly fit in to the sports/everyday man narrative and demonstrate that it can touch everyone – even the funny man off the telly.  

·         Effective corporate partnership: Finally, the campaign will still raise money for the charity in its fight against prostate cancer through a partnership with Keyline. It would have been easy for Prostate Cancer UK to stick Keyline’s logo on the site and take the money. But they’ve been far cleverer. Keyline is donating 50p for everyone who takes the quiz to the value of £25,000. This is that final incentive men need to take part – a donation that doesn’t come from your own wallet.

According to the website, this is a long-term campaign for the charity. I hope they make the most of it. You can see this being something that the Premier League, football clubs and players get right behind – from tweets of support to full on campaigning and fundraising.

In terms of my quiz – well I got four out of five. I couldn’t identify where the prostate is, but I did guess that the amount of money invested in prostate cancer research was equivalent to buying Manchester City’s Alvaro Negredo (£20m) as opposed to Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale (£80m).

More than anything, I’m proud to be on the team – so proud that I’ve shared it on Twitter. Come on lads, "we can win this”.