Cancer Research UK has launched a new campaign for its Race for Life series of events and added a new event for children.
The new campaign message, ‘This is beating cancer’, aims to showcase the personal stories of people taking part and has been designed to integrate with the charity’s overall ‘right now’ messaging.
From this week the campaign will be seen across television, outdoor, digital, radio, PR, and on social media.
Seven films have been created for the campaign, two of which will be shown on television.
Emily Smith, head of events marketing at Cancer Research UK said: “Our new campaign puts Race for Life participants centre stage, showing their motivations for taking part to inspire others to sign up too. We want every woman to see taking part in Race for Life as their opportunity to make a real impact in beating cancer.
“The new campaign captures the emotional and important reasons behind why people take part in Race for Life, but also shows the fun and wonderfully supportive atmosphere at the events.”
CRUK worked with short film maker Matan Rochlitz directed the films through Firecracker Films and creative agency Anomaly.
Income falling
Income from the Race for Life event has been falling in recent years.
According to its accounts for the year ending 31 March 2016 the charity raised £40m in sponsorship income from over 500,000 participants for Race for Life. This is £10m less than the £50m it raised in 2014 when there were over 550,000 participants.
Earlier this year at Fundraising Live, organised by Civil Society Media, the charity’s director of brand, marketing and communications, Anthony Newman revealed that he had been working to turn the event around.
He said than in 2011/2012 the event was in “dramatic decline”, but that he brought in a new team and introduced new events in the portfolio.
Watch the plenary session here.
New event
This year CRUK has added Pretty Muddy Kids, which is an obstacle course for children aged 5 to 12 years.
Last year CRUK added full and half marathons to the Race for Life portfolio as well as a Tough10 – an 10km run for men and women.
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