Caught you looking at my ta-tas!

A great story from the nytimes on the changing landscape for breast cancer positioning & marketing communication.

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Here goes:

You know breast cancer’s come a long way when you can’t tell whether a shirt’s for charity – or for Mardi Gras.

Weary of dealing in the same old serious mantras, a new crop of cancer-awareness campaigns are taking the emphasis off the C-word and putting it on the fun part. Uh, parts.

Aimed at a demographic of young women raised on irony and American Apparel, these clingy, boob-centric T-shirt logos are making the message positively hip.

Julia Fikse, founder of the Save the Ta-Tas Foundation, coined her slogan while trying to cope with a relative’s illness. Humor pops up at the weirdest times, she says: “My husband’s aunt got breast cancer, and had a double mastectomy. My husband and I were talking about it, and we had a chuckle about boobs. I thought maybe other people would want to laugh during that dark time, too.”

She now sells a whole line of shirts, emblazoned with the pink breast-cancer ribbon: “All-American ta-tas,” “Rockin’ ta-tas” – even a line for men, including her newest: “Save a life, grope your wife.”

She also sells a bottled shower gel, with breast self-exam instructions on its side, called – what else? – Boob Lube.

Subtle, it’s not. But then, neither is dying of cancer because you didn’t know how to do a self-exam and missed a lump.

This is almost what happened to 38-year-old Leigh Hurst, breast cancer survivor and founder of the Feel Your Boobies Foundation. After noticing a lump accidentally at age 33, she became obsessed with spreading the word. “I just made up some shirts for my friends, because I was always telling them, ‘Feel your boobies!’ ” she says, laughing.

The women wore their shirts to a fund-raising walk, and were besieged by inquiries. They went to the “Today” show one morning, Katie Couric held up their placard, and business really took off.

“I think people like to joke around more than to be serious,” Hurst says. “You can’t make it feel like your mom waving her finger at you. If you say ‘boobies,’ it’s a little sexy, a little provocative. It might even create a dialogue between a guy and you where he says, ‘Can I feel your boobies?’”

Feel your boobies

The upfront slogans aren’t the first shot in the war of humor against cancer; a little over a decade ago, comedian Julia Sweeney performed a one-woman show – “God Said Ha!” – about her struggle with cancer. And in 2004, TV producer Geralyn Lucas published an irreverent memoir, “Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy.”

When Lucas attended a meeting of the Tickled Pink Foundation – a group for survivors and their kids – the visit was controversial, says founder Iris Dankner. Lucas talked openly about her surgery, and didn’t sugarcoat anything.

“Moms were like, ‘Do I want my daughter to hear this?’ ” says Dankner. “But I feel like you’ve got to get young women to be comfortable with their bodies.”

Female celebrities – not historically known for helping teen girls feel more confident – have actually been helpful in this regard. Sheryl Crow, Cynthia Nixon, Kylie Minogue and Melissa Etheridge have all “come out” as survivors. Fran Drescher, a uterine cancer survivor, wore a “Caught You Lookin’ at my Ta-Tas” shirt to an Emmy party.

Most recently, Christina Applegate had a preventative double mastectomy and went public immediately. “I have to get out there and make this a positive,” she told Robin Roberts – a high-profile survivor herself – on “Good Morning America” recently.

Erin O’Brien Dugery, who watched her sister Kelly die of breast cancer, went positive, too. She and her sister’s best friend now sell shirts featuring a slogan coined by her late sister: “Save 2nd Base.” The cute pink tees – with two strategically placed baseballs – are selling like hot cakes.

“It’s such a serious, sad subject, watching somebody die,” Dugery says. “It’s the worst thing that has ever happened in my life, holding my sister’s hand while she was taking her last breaths.

“But she was such a funny, goofy person,” she continues. “If there are people who get a giggle out of something my sister said, and we’re able to raise money to find a cure, that’s so rewarding.”

You can check out ‘Save the tatas’ here

Original story taken from nytimes