Categories: Branding & Design

Where Do You Like It?

Skimming through hundreds of friend’s Facebook statuses this week, I noticed a growing trend of females telling me where they like it. As I read statuses like “I like it on the floor, on the kitchen counter, on the couch, or on the doorknob,” I wondered what sudden sense of blunt honesty caused these females friends to share where they like to do some pretty intense things. On a doorknob? What the…?

Knowing most of my friends weren’t that blunt or that gross in sharing such personal details, I wondered what “it” really meant and why they decided they wanted to share such details this week. After reading about a new campaign in celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness month on Mashable, I understood that the point of these statuses was to share where women like to leave their purse. The call to action coming from these risque statuses was to cause viewers to ask the author what it meant and create a conversation about breast cancer and the severity of it.

Now, I am all for bringing attention to saving the ta-ta’s, but really now? Did this campaign create the conversation that they hoped for? I surely didn’t learn anything more about breast cancer and how severe it is. Having a relative who had it, I know it’s a real issue and so I take it with no joking matter. But instead, this campaign only caused a conversation where women demean breast cancer by causing the reader to get their head stuck in the gutter and wonder why you’re telling everyone you like it on the kitchen counter.

This campaign was similar to one that ran in January where women were supposed to put the color of their bra in their Facebook statuses. That campaign did little to share the facts about breast cancer, but instead taught me what color of bras my friends like to wear. This information I could have lived without.

What I want to know is if this is Breast Cancer Awareness month and the end goal of these campaigns is to educate people on breast cancer and generate a buzz about it, then why use such suggestive methods? Why not share true facts like women have a 1 in 9 chance of getting breast cancer (depending on current age)? Or that the risk of breast cancer increases with age?

Some quick facts about breast cancer from the CDC:

Not counting some kinds of skin cancer, breast cancer in the United States is—

The most common cancer in women, no matter your race or ethnicity.
The most common cause of death from cancer among Hispanic women.
The second most common cause of death from cancer among white, black, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native women.

In 2006 (the most recent year numbers are available)—

191,410 women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
40,820 women died from breast cancer.

So for your next campaign, please share some real facts. Frankly, where you like to leave your purse or the color of your bra does no good for creating awareness of your cause. Leave the purse on the doorknob and create a real conversation.

No To The Quo

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View Comments

Andrius says:

May 20, 2011 at 11:44 am

Haha... the title and few first sentences looked quite convincing...
what a cheap dirty trick to fool people :)

I would never use this kind of techniques as the group you are talking about in facebook used.
This would make my customers lose faith in me :)