Cancer Research promotes its Nivea partnership at warm and sunny events with RPM

Cancer Research UK has commissioned its marketing communications agency, RPM, to develop a roaming experiential campaign that promotes the charity’s ongoing educational and fundraising partnership with Nivea Sun.

The activation – which is part of a wider ‘thermally activated’ media campaign created with Nivea’s partner agencies: MEC, FCB Inferno and AKQA – will run across Race for Life events, plus beaches and parks throughout South East and South West England. Teams will be live over nine days, split between weekends (June – August) and weekdays (August).

As a ‘thermally activated’ campaign, the activity will only take place on days when the temperature is above 19 degrees centigrade and the UV index is 5 or above. So events are confirmed 48-hours beforehand, thus posing several logistical challenges.

The partnership between Cancer Research UK and Nivea Sun encourages people to enjoy the sun safely, whilst raising funds for research into skin cancer. So the campaign’s objectives are to educate families on how to enjoy the sun safely (spending time in the shade, covering up with a t-shirt and hat, and using sunscreen when out in strong sun) with the aim of positively influencing their sun safety behaviour.

Creative execution is based around an ice cream cart trike to tie into the message that ‘an ice-cream scoop’ of suncream is the right application for a full body. This educational messaging will be backed-up with free 30ml samples of Nivea Sun sunscreen and sunhat giveaways. The campaign will be amplified digitally across Twitter using the hashtag #gotmyhaton. Consumers will be encouraged to spread the word via Tweeted photos of themselves wearing sunhats hats. People will be incentivised to Tweet with the promise of a free beach ball.

Cancer Research UK’s Senior health campaigns manager, Caroline Cerny, said: “This activity is the latest chapter in a long history between ourselves and RPM, which has seen the agency manage our Cancer Awareness Roadshows for the last seven years. Although the message is serious, RPM has made sure the experience is fun. So we’re confident the campaign will gain wide traction across the country on glorious summer days.”

RPM’s MD, Dom Robertson, said: “By influencing the way people behave, this campaign sits at the core of RPM’s ultimate goal: changing human behaviour through positive brand behaviour. But it presented us with quite a few challenges. Thanks to the famously unreliable British weather, we found the only way to successfully deliver a thermally activated campaign like this is to appoint an in-house dedicated staffing agency and logistics team. This means we can flexibly plan and implement staffing and logistics at short notice.”