Prostate Cancer drops Charity from name because of negative connotations

By Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Thursday, 28 June 2012 11:15AM

The Prostate Cancer Charity has dropped the word "charity" from its name, claiming the word carries negative connotations.

The charity is renaming itself Prostate Cancer UK, which it hopes will better communicate its services and the support it offers to men suffering from the disease.

The charity has replaced its previous blue-on-white logo with a bold, blue-on-black logo that sits next to a tall figure of a man, which has been built with several images of men in different walks of life.

The rebrand marks a soft public launch for the charity, including a revamp of the website, with a full marketing campaign expected in October.

Seamus O’Farrell, director of marketing and communications at the organisation, told Marketing that dropping the word "charity" from its name was integral to raising its awareness.

He said: "The word 'charity' can carry connotations for consumers that it is an organisation where talented amateurs work, but we provide advice from nurses, support, and information from healthcare professionals and researchers."

According to O’Farrell, prostate cancer affects as many men in the UK as breast cancer affects women, but the public awareness is severely lower around the male cancer.

He said: "One of our heroes is the breast cancer movement. For the last 25 years or more, everybody has understood that breast cancer is a huge problem, and we've got to get a public understanding of prostate cancer up to the same levels of awareness as that."

The charity is in the process of planning its marketing campaign for later this year, which will include a heavy social media presence. In addition, the organisation aims to lobby Parliament and campaign within the health service to educate those in power about the prevalence of the disease.

O’Farrell said: "We need to be funding research that is going to find the breakthrough answers. There isn't enough research on the disease at the moment, and there isn't a simple screening programme for men to ask their doctors about – it's a very specific blood test.

"We need funding for treatments that do not carry the side-effects of impotence or incontinence, which, frankly, are emasculating."

Part of the rebrand includes a video hosted on http://prostatecanceruk.org/ that outlines the basic facts of prostate cancer, explaining where the prostate is located, that it affects one in nine men and kills 10,000 men each year in the UK.

Follow Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith on Twitter @loullamae_es

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk