Leveraging Kidney Cancer Awareness Week to empower the general public with more knowledge and awareness of kidney cancer

Kidney Cancer UK asked us to design a 2-month campaign which centered around Kidney Cancer Awareness Week and aimed to; raise the charity’s profile, better educate the public about the signs and symptoms of kidney cancer, and boost engagement with the charity’s long-running ‘Green Friday’ initiative on social media.

Our strategy involved activating a series of targeted press office activities which would create opportunities for Kidney Cancer UK to share research, knowledge and advice around the topic of kidney cancer – with coverage aiming to land at the beginning of Kidney Cancer Awareness Week. This was supported by a celebrity and influencer led UGC for Green Friday, which took place towards the end of the awareness week.

Our core press office activity involved reviewing Kidney Cancer UK’s 2021 annual patient survey, and creating a hard-hitting press release based on any key/interesting findings we came across. The release was shared with the national, consumer, trade and Scottish media – gaining coverage in the likes of The Independent, The Mail on Sunday, The Scotsman and Mail Online.

Another important strand of press office activity involved working with the charity’s leading spokespeople, and offering them to the media as expert commentators for Kidney Cancer Awareness Week. Through a mixture of news agenda hijacking, bespoke feature placement and thought leadership, we were able to secure coverage across a broad range of titles, which informed readers about the signs and symptoms they should be looking out for when it comes to kidney cancer and included a link to the charity website where they could find out more.

In the lead up to Kidney Cancer Awareness Week we also interviewed eight Kidney Cancer UK beneficiaries and drafted overviews of their stories for the media. These compelling stories were featured across the national, consumer and regional media, with information about Kidney Cancer UK and its work weaved into the narrative.

Finally, we reached out to a list of celebrities and influencers who had a personal connection with kidney cancer (or cancer more generally) and invited them to share an image of themselves wearing/cooking/enjoying something green on the morning of Green Friday – alongside the #GreenFriday hashtag and a link to the Kidney Cancer UK website.

40

pieces of coverage published – over three times our agreed KPI target, and 43% of which was in the national media.

17

social media posts shared by celebrities & influencers – helping the campaign to reach over 465+ million people

100%

of coverage secured including key messaging for Kidney Cancer UK

“As a ‘rarer cancer’, kidney cancer has always struggled to be heard above the noise of more common cancers in the UK media. I produced a tight brief which was to raise its profile ensuring it became part of the news agenda using Kidney Cancer Awareness Week as its focus. Our KPI’s were surpassed by PHA, achieving great uplift across the media of kidney cancer. The level of professionalism, communication, and ultimate delivery of results from the team at PHA cannot be underestimated. We have an important three-year plan to raise the profile of kidney cancer in the UK, which is very much on track, and PHA is an essential part of our journey.”
Malcolm Packer
Head of Charity Affairs and Communications for Kidney Cancer UK & Kidney Cancer Scotland
Get in touch with the team