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With one in three of us set to suffer from cancer at some point in our lives, the illness is one that will touch us all directly or indirectly.

The good news is that more of us are living through cancer every year, and survival rates are rising.

Much of this is thanks to research into the various forms of the illness and its treatment, as well as earlier detection. And research is where Cancer Research UK (CRUK) comes in. Formed in 2002 from the merger of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the Cancer Research ±±¾©Èü³µpk10, it brings the two specialist areas of laboratory and clinical research together.

"Our USP is 'bench to bedside'," says Anthony Newman, CRUK's head of donor marketing. "From basic molecular research to getting drugs to trial."

But while this work directly contributes to the improving survival rates, it doesn't have quite the same donor pull as something like patient care or Third World poverty. Late last year, therefore, CRUK found itself needing to raise awareness as well as donations, despite being the UK's largest charity.

Crowded market

Newman believes there were two main reasons CRUK was having difficulty making itself known: "There are hundreds of cancer charities and it's confusing for people to understand what they all do," he says. "There's also the issue that our name is so generic that some people will say Cancer Research, when possibly they mean CRUK."

The charity needed to hammer home to the public that research has made a big difference. "There is a large perception that cancer is a death sentence. For many, unfortunately, it is but more people are being successfully treated these days," he says.

Working with agency WWAV Rapp Collins, which started on the ICRF account in 2000 before moving over to CRUK when the merger took place, the charity came up with the All Clear campaign - a significant departure in message, in that it focused on hope rather than need. The idea was to focus the public's attention on this more positive message to demonstrate the success of CRUK's work by showing people surviving cancer.

There was some good reasoning behind this, as Jon Goulding, client services director at WWAV, explains: "Charity response rates have been dropping for some time, so CRUK needed to do something with greater standout. The whole category is about creating need, normally by sending out classic pulling-heartstrings direct response ads. We decided to go counter-category to motivate people."

It was a brave move. CRUK gave WWAV two targets to achieve - raising funds, and brand awareness. The usual sticking point when leading with such a positive message is that people are less inclined to give in response to good news. However, Newman didn't believe this was such an issue here.

"All Clear is still a very emotive campaign," he says. "Concern about cancer as a cause is very different from most others in that it's very personal - we all know someone who's had it. Our argument is that we don't need to push the terrible effect of cancer down people's throats."

To maximise reach and penetration, CRUK used as many different channels as possible, with the campaign running both above and below the line.

The charity wanted to give people a chance to reflect on its new message, so choosing media that hit people at the right time was important. TV was used for both brand-building and donor-generation, while 48-sheet posters, tube cards, radio, shop-front activity and sandwich bags were also used for brand-building. Every CRUK shop carried All Clear creative, while a number of community and nationwide fundraising events, such as Race for Life, also took place. DRTV, doordrops and direct mail drove response and were used to maximise the halo effect of the other activity.

Huge audience

Mainly asking for a £2 monthly donation, the campaign targeted an ABC1, 35+ audience of people whose lives have been touched in some way by cancer, directly or indirectly - a huge potential market.

"The number one creative challenge was balancing the positive message with the need for funds," says Goulding. "It could have been too easy to look at the All Clear ads and say it's all done, there's no need to donate. We created an emotional engagement with the audience, but instead of depression there's inspiration to give."

There were two creatives - the first, 'Generations', showed a woman in a hospital telling her mother and child that she has been given the all clear. 'Family Man' featured a man returning home with his wife to tell his children that he is all clear. Versions of these creatives showed how the different family members felt when they heard the good news.

The logistics of delivering such a vast campaign were also challenging to say the least. In terms of timing, some of the door-drops went out before the main campaign in order to pre-test the halo effect. TV, tube cards, outdoor and radio then all launched at around the same time, along with a big PR burst.

Brand response TV activity ran in two bursts in February and March on all major channels and some satellite, while DRTV ran until July, mostly on cable and satellite.

Because the idea was so new, no one was expecting instant success, but they were in for a surprise. "We all thought that the positioning of the message was so new that it wouldn't be instantly successful," says Goulding. "But we were lucky - it was."

Overall, he believes that it was refreshing, particularly for cancer sufferers, to hear that progress is being made and more people are surviving.

And the sheer number of channels got the message to the widest possible audience. "It was a huge challenge of integration, but it paid off," says Newman. "Mass marketing meant we could reach people above and below the line who perhaps aren't usually open to charity messages."

The figures speak for themselves - during the campaign there was a shift in spontaneous brand recall from seven to 17 per cent. The ads also achieved 26 per cent spontaneous recall, with TV response 15 per cent above target.

It doesn't end there. "At the start it was about pushing hope and not need. The next stage is to start increasing 'need' a bit more, moving the emphasis slightly between hope and fear," says Newman. It's a challenge but if anyone can pull it off it's CRUK.

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