Wearing Of The Blue
A color can help raise awareness of a deadly disease.
On the 17th of this month, many Americans will don green attire to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Grocery retailers might also want to encourage their customers and employees to wear something blue during March in support of Colon Cancer Awareness Month.
Much like wearing pink during February has come to symbolize breast cancer awareness, blue during March, it is hoped, will become synonymous with awareness of colon cancer. Supermarket retailers can play a vital role in helping promote awareness and educating the public on this often neglected killer.
According to the Washington-based Colon Cancer Alliance (CCA), colorectal cancer is second only to lung cancer in causing cancer deaths, taking roughly 50,000 American lives each year. "If people would stop smoking, which causes 89 percent of lung cancers, colon cancer would be the No. 1 cancer killer in America," says Andrew Spiegel, CCA's CEO.
A Matter of Life and Death
Spiegel points out that 150,000 new cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed annually in the United States, and every nine minutes someone will die from the disease. The odds are one in 19 that you'll be diagnosed with colorectal cancer at some point in your lifetime. The disease affects both sexes equally and doesn't discriminate on the basis of race or age.
"The No. 1 symptom of colorectal cancer is no symptom at all," Spiegel says, "which stresses the importance of screening."
Since screening and early detection are the best defenses against the disease, awareness and education are the chief tools in driving people to take a proactive stance in potentially saving their own lives.
CCA has been using its "blue undies" logo as a means of raising awareness during the March campaign, reaching out through community events and in-store materials. "We are holding three of our popular Undy5000 5K runs during March (in San Diego; Sacramento, Calif.; and St. Louis), which encourage folks to run in their undies in order to create a buzz about this not-often-talked-about disease," Spiegel says.
"Our presenting partner, Dulcolax, has helped us grow these events by bringing in retail partners, who include many of America's major pharmacies and retailers," he says, adding that Dulcolax has also created a matching program for the retailers. "Any money raised by their employees or donated by the companies is matched, which is obviously a great benefit to the cause and also to retailers, since the amount donated is doubled and the donations generate great publicity."
Supermarkets can also get involved with the cause by taking part in "Dress in Blue Day" events, hosting "Dollar Up" programs at the registers, or selling the CCA boxer cutouts for $1 at checkout that are then hung up in the store with customers' names on them.
Retailers can also aid in awareness and prevention by setting up digestive health cross-merchandised sections, especially during March. Retailers can merchandise digestive aid products, aspirin, high-fiber foods and digestive cleansing products together.
"From aspirin to vitamins, supermarkets have many OTC products which can benefit the public in the prevention and detection of colon cancer," Spiegel says. "Many doctors use Dulcolax as part of a colon-cleansing routine, which is necessary before having a colonoscopy, the test which is considered the gold standard for colon cancer screening."
CCA has also kicked off a cause marketing campaign with the assistance of Dulcolax that is aimed at further building awareness by placing the CCA logo on millions of boxes of the product. These packages will appear in all of the retail outlets to which the brand's parent company, Ridgefield, Conn.-based Boehringer Ingelheim, sells its product.
"Remember, this is the most preventable major cancer through screening, and the difference between catching this disease at the early stages versus later stages can be the difference between life and death," Spiegel notes.
"From aspirin to vitamins, supermarkets have many OTC products which can benefit the public in the prevention and detection of colon cancer."
— Andrew Spiegel, Colon Cancer Alliance