In the summer of 2023/24 Cancer Council, in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care launched the first national skin cancer prevention campaign targeting young Australians in over a decade.
The campaign aimed to drive up the use of sun protection behaviours to reduce the rate of skin cancer by addressing young Australian’s attitudes towards suntanning.
Research identified1 that Australians 18 – 30 would be resistant to behaviour change messaging from authoritarian voices like Cancer Council and the Australian Government. Instead, the campaign needed to leverage authentic, influential voices that resonate with the audience.
The influencer strategy involved three phases and included influencers across three tiers – micro (10 – 149K followers), macro (150 -499k followers) and mega (500K+ followers).
The strategy built a base of influencers normalising the desired behaviour before shifting to questioning the unhelpful attitudes the target audience have. This ensured the audience felt safe in shifting their attitudes and in turn behaviours, because they could see those they look up to doing the same.
Careful consideration and risk mitigation was required to ensure the influencers were the right fit for both brands, would resonate with the target audience and would result in genuine conversion. Additionally, comprehensive briefing and content approval processes were required to ensure every piece of content was on message and was not inadvertently reinforcing unhelpful suntanning attitudes.
Over the campaign period we worked with more than 60 influencers who published 190 pieces of content resulting in 103+m impressions.