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.”

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