For Nicola Smedley, director of marketing and digital at Cancer Research UK, the move into advertiser-funded programming was a way of tackling one of the charity\u2019s hardest communications challenges: how to explain the complexity of cancer, and the progress being made against it, in a way that people can properly understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cExplaining cancer is complex,\u201d she says. \u201cCancer Research UK works across more than 200 forms of cancer and explaining why cancer has not yet been solved is complicated. Being able to do that in a longer-form way \u2014 talking about research innovation, how it is affecting people, and the scientists behind the work \u2014 felt really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thinking emerged from a brand refresh a couple of years ago, Smedley says, as the charity considered how it could evolve the way it talks about its work. \u201cWe were working on a brand refresh and thinking about how to evolve the way we talk about our work: how we have more impact with the public, bring more of our work to them, and give people more hope around the advances we\u2019re making in research\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Smedley says, after Covid-19 there was a greater public appetite to understand science and engage with science content. That created an opportunity for Cancer Research UK to go deeper than a traditional campaign would allow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started by asking: what are the opportunities to tell stories in a different, more engaging way? What would allow us to combine scientific breakthrough, the impact on people with cancer, and the hope that creates?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Cancer Research UK already had experience of longer-form storytelling through its relationship with Channel 4 around Stand Up To Cancer. But Cancer Detectives was different. It was the charity\u2019s first fully-funded programming project of this kind.<\/p>\n
For Daniel Wood, SVP, Sports and Entertainment at WPP Media, the idea was rooted in a simple tension. Those close to Cancer Research UK understand the scale and significance of the work it funds. But the wider public does not necessarily see that work or understand the stories behind it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you work on Cancer Research UK, you know the incredible stories and the work the organisation is doing,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we were very conscious that those stories are not necessarily understood by everyone in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
That made Channel 4 an obvious target. The broadcaster had an existing relationship with the charity, but more importantly it had a reputation for human-led, emotionally intelligent storytelling \u2014 the kind that could handle scientific accuracy without losing the audience.<\/p>\n
Cancer Research UK needed to make clear the story they wanted to tell: not just a story about cancer, but a story about the scientists working to change its future. Wood says Channel 4 quickly saw the storytelling potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey felt it was a message their audience needed to hear,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
From there, the partners worked to find the right production company. Several proposals were considered before Dragonfly North was selected for its ability to handle both the science and the human stories with care.<\/p>\n
The result was a close partnership between Cancer Research UK, WPP Media, Channel 4 and Dragonfly. Smedley\u2019s team brought deep knowledge of the charity\u2019s research, scientists and patient stories, while Channel 4 and Dragonfly shaped that material into a broadcast proposition and the WPP Media team brokered and strategically developed the partnership.<\/p>\n
The challenge was to make the programme feel unmistakably connected to Cancer Research UK without turning it into an awkward brand vehicle. That balance was critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe proposed stories we felt had real interest, either because of the cancer type or their current-day impact. For example, one story was around a lung vaccine, which is about stopping cancer before it starts,\u201d Smedley says. \u201cThe scientists tell the stories around the work they are doing, but the people going through treatment were chosen because they were in the system at that moment. They were not chosen by us because they said something specific about Cancer Research UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smedley says Cancer Research UK\u2019s role was to show Channel 4 and Dragonfly the science stories it had available, including the lung vaccine work, and help narrow those down to the three that would sit at the heart of the one-hour programmes for maximum engagement.<\/p>\n
Once the programmes were complete, the charity reviewed them for factual accuracy. But the storytelling itself belonged to the broadcaster and producer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEditorial control sat totally with Channel 4,\u201d says Smedley. \u201cThis was an AFP, so the process was theirs rather than ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
The process was also relatively fast. Early conversations began around 14 months before the series went on air, but from a fully fledged brief to broadcast took around 10 months.<\/p>\n
Wood says that is quick for a project of this kind. Many AFP projects take about a year, and this one carried additional complexity because of the sensitivity and factual precision required.<\/p>\n
The other important factor was that Channel 4 was not treated simply as a media platform. It was a full partner in the project.<\/p>\n
For Wood, that matters. In an era when any brand can publish content into digital channels, there is still a particular value in creating work for the linear television schedule \u2014 especially when the subject carries the weight and importance of cancer research.<\/p>\n
\u201cProducing work of this quality and importance with a national broadcaster elevates the impact,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
But the programme was only one part of the wider campaign. Cancer Research UK built a broader activation around Cancer Detectives, using the three programmes as the centrepiece for a wider breakthroughs campaign across its website, social channels and other media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Nicola Smedley, director of marketing and digital at Cancer Research UK, the move into advertiser-funded programming was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-537218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}