News

Rotary launches bowel cancer YouTube video featuring 50plus men in their jocks

Rotary clubs across south-east Queensland have launched a video campaign on YouTube to raise awareness for the second deadliest cancer affecting Australians – bowel cancer.

The video features four local Queenslanders aged between 50 to 80 in their underwear, shaking their ‘ass’ to the Groove Armada song “I See You Baby (Shaking that Ass)”.

The oldest man featured in the clip is 78-year-old Rotary Bowelscan coordinator James Pollock.

It is the first time the nonprofit organisation has used social media, which will soon include a Facebook profile, to push its Bowelscan program – a public awareness program which also includes the sale of affordable bowel cancer testing kits available in pharmacies.

Rotary said it wanted to take a different marketing approach to some of the current doom and gloom campaigns being launched. The south-east Queensland Rotary clubs are also hoping to encourage other Rotary organisations around the country to adopt its marketing approach to the Rotary Bowelscan.

Sixty-one year old John Kolcze is another who features in the YouTube video. He has previously battled from breast cancer.

“Being diagnosed with breast cancer as a man came as a real shock as it certainly was not a disease I thought I was at risk of and that lack of awareness nearly cost me my life. I really wanted to get behind this video to help get through to men my age that bowel cancer is another cancer we are at high risk of and need to get tested for regularly,” he said.

The volunteers in the video will feature in promotional posters in pharmacies in south-east Queensland.

The campaign was created by PR agency Gray Media Services.

It follows the launch in December of a campaign by the Gut Foundation – funded by advertising veteran John Singleton – to bring greater awareness to bowel cancer.

The TV ad, created by Banjo Advertising, featured scenes reminiscent of live TV coverage of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.