Breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel! has seen more than a 2,000 per cent increase in hits to its website since last week’s launch of the “Check ‘em Tuesday” campaign.

The campaign which sees CoppaFeel! take over the controversial Page Three every Tuesday for six month began last week. The £1.5m campaign has led to 10.2m hits to its coverage on the Sun’s website, which is in front of its paywall, and over 10m people have engaged with it on Twitter.

A spokeswoman for the charity said: “We are exceptionally pleased at how many people it has reached because Coppafeel! is not a charity which funds research or raises funds for certain things, it is purely an awareness raising charity so its main aim is to raise awareness which so far it has done.”

The Check ‘em Tuesday partnership has received criticism from its launch, notably from campaign group No More Page Three, however the charity has said that 80 per cent of the feedback it has received has been positive.

The spokeswoman said: “We always knew the campaign would be controversial so it is the case that some people have been not happy with what we decided to do and have taken to twitter to vent their feelings.

“It is something that we have been keeping an eye on to see whether or not we feel that it is something that has got some weight behind it or just few and far between.”

She claims that the majority of those who dislike the campaign are slightly older and fall outside of the charity’s intended audience. Founder Kris Hallenga (pictured) has stated that, although she has a lot of respect for these people, it is aimed at people like herself, who might have gone to the doctor sooner had they paid attention to such a campaign. Hallenga was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer at age 23. The charity said they are making an effort to reply to each person who negatively comments at them on Twitter

CoppaFeel! plan to judge the success of their campaign in six months time, when they will redo research which was paid for by the Sun before the campaign began, to see if there is an improvement in the awareness of young women of breast cancer, which they claim is currently “frighteningly low”.

The charity believes the debate started by the controversial campaign all contributes to its main aim of raising awareness. The spokeswoman said that they have even received feedback from fathers who back their cause. 

She said: “This isn’t just people with breast cancer who we are targeting. It is exactly the opposite. It is mums and dads, daughters and boyfriends, who could be saying to their young partner or sister or daughter, you should check yourself, and you should get to know yourself a bit better.”

The charity remain optimistic that the campaign will continue to raise awareness of breast cancer, and the importance of women (and men) checking themselves, over the next six months.