Breast Cancer is known as the silent killer, attributed to low awareness and late detection. Philips wanted to break this silence and encourage women to be more attentive towards their health and practice breast self-examination, regularly. Since most women feel uncomfortable discussing their breasts, this insight pressed us to think differently and find the best influencer to break the silence. Thus, was born the Husbands Initiated Movement against Breast Cancer. The HIMinitiative encouraged the husbands to take up one chore the wife does and ask her to take out 10 minutes to practice breast self-examination. The epicentre of this initiative was a website where husbands could send a personalized e-mailer entailing the test to their wives. Multiple pull mediums were activated to bring husbands to the website and make it a mass movement. More than 4million people were reached and more than 50,000 husbands joined the initiative.

The first step was to develop a microsite: www.himinative.com, where husbands were able to send a self-examination kit to their wives in the form of e-mailers entailing a personalized message with their initials. The website also hosted relevant information about Breast Cancer and mechanism to get queries answered by an Oncologist. A two minute film was developed and played on YouTube, cinemas and TV, sensitizing husbands about the cause and prompted them to join the initiative. Series of banners, e-mailers, LinkedIn advertising and social media engagement on Twitter and Facebook drove traffic to the website. This was supported by print and outdoor advertising along with FAQ activity with a leading Oncologist on radio. The advertising and digital mediums were complimented with corporate and mall activations, where husbands were engaged and information around Breast Cancer and self-examination kits were disseminated. All activities were implemented simultaneously for 10 days in October.

The campaign ran for 10 days during October, which is the Breast Cancer Awareness month and the following results were achieved:

4 Million: Reached through digital activation

670,000: Views for the film on YouTube

111,896: Visitors on the HIMinitiative website

75,000+: Doctors were contacted through e-mailers

37,678: Self-examination kits distributed in hospitals, mall and offices

20,250: Self-examination tests emailed by husband to their wives through the website

12,200: Husbands downloaded the self-examination test through the website

5,650: Philips employees were engaged through internal activation

1,461: Queries on Breast Cancer answered by Oncologists through SMS and e-mail id put on the website

457: Selfies shared by husbands wearing the “I support HIMinitiative” badge as a pledge to support the campaign

More than the numbers, the campaign was successful in creating a behavioural change, as this was the first campaign which targeted husbands to fight against Breast Cancer.