1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer, and survival rates are far better if it is caught early. How do you persuade an audience that is notoriously careless about its health – ie men – to take this issue seriously?

Hence these communication efforts to persuade men to get themselves checked, as well as to raise money for research.

Prostate Cancer UK: Layla

Such a smart, charming idea. And cleverly frames getting yourself checked as the positive  “won’t it great to be alive in the future?” rather than the downbeat “won’t it be bad to die?”.

CANSA: Don’t Fear the Finger

There had long been (understandable) resistance by men to having a doctor put a finger up their bum (euphemistically called a digital examination), which was the way you got checked for prostate cancer. As testing changed to a blood test, the news was slow to travel, and the old fear of the finger remained. This clever commercial addresses it head on.

Prostate Cancer Research: Give a Few Bob

In our age of AI-enhanced CGI we can see this as quite crude, but this commercial, which brought comedian Bob Monkhouse back from the grave, caused a sensation at the time.

Prostate Cancer UK: Keep Dads Dancing

Also from Prostate Cancer UK, but this time aimed at fundraising, this Father’s Day commercial tapped in joyfully to people’s feelings about their Dads (and keeping them around).

The Ideas Lab examines what makes effective (or ineffective) communications in the fields of causes, charities and socially-oriented businesses.