Sussex garages fight prostate cancer with Orchid charity

The bold campaign, which rolls out for eight weeks across garages in Brighton and Sussex, uses the everyday experience of refuelling at a petrol station to highlight symptoms in a playful yet impactful way.

Turning a routine pit stop into an important health reminder, the campaign will see petrol pump ads and surrounding posters draw clever parallels between filling up your car and the symptoms of prostate cancer.

Over 55,100 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK each year, which is around 151 men per day and sadly, around 12,000 men die each year from prostate cancer, although many more recover. For many men, the most obvious day-to-day symptoms include difficulty in starting to pee (hesitancy), straining or taking a long time while peeing, weak flow or feeling that your bladder has not emptied fully.

With messaging such as ‘Feel like you’re struggling to squeeze out every last drop - you could have a problem prostate’ – the ads are designed to make potential prostate cancer patients, as well as their friends and family who often play a key role in spotting symptoms stop, smile, and most importantly, think.

Ali Orhan, CEO Orchid – Fighting Male Cancer said: “We wanted to create something that not only speaks to men who might be experiencing these symptoms, but could also alert partners, family members or even friends to spot when something might be wrong.

“By using an analogy as relatable as refuelling your car, we’re hoping to get people talking, and ultimately, take action if something might be wrong. Symptoms can often go unnoticed or be mistaken for less serious conditions, which is why this campaign is so important.”

Gary Hooker, prostate cancer patient advocate, said "I've had prostate cancer for 14 years and from my own experience and meeting other patients I know that early detection of prostate cancer is essential. The campaign Orchid is doing is innovative as it highlights the main symptoms to look out for in an eye-catching way by showing how some of the key symptoms have similar actions to filling up your petrol tank. If you experience any of these symptoms, or you notice that a member of your family has these symptoms, then it’s really important to get checked.”

The Brighton/Sussex campaign was funded by sponsorship from Astellas and a grant from Takeda.

A sister campaign is also running on the Isle of Man funded by the Isle of Man Anti-Cancer Association with support of Ellan Vannin Fuels who have kindly donated advertising space for the campaign at their garages.

Malcolm Clague, Chairman of IOM ACA says ‘The Isle of Man Anti-Cancer Association is very happy to support this novel awareness campaign for Prostate cancer on the Island, in collaboration with our partners Orchid. Prostate Cancer is the commonest cancer in men and presently does not have a proper screening programme. Early presentation and diagnosis is key to improving outcomes.’

The campaign was created by award winning global health marketing, communications, and transformation platform, Inizio Evoke and saw 1 in 6 members of the public able to recall the core campaign messages at concept test.