Bad campaigning on an important issue

I MEANT to blog about this before concerning the recent advertising campaign carried out by the Marie Keating foundation.

Everytime it came on the telly I turned it over, it made me hugely uncomfortable to say the least.

For those of you who don't know what I am talking about it was an ad with the message that there was a time when we (women) used to be excited about changes (as a child) now it could save our lives.

I don't know what the ad company was thinking. The tv ad involved kids wearing (I presume the message was their Mum's) bras stuffing them and all sorts. Mad. The day when we could portray that type of innocence has long gone. Unfortunately the message was lost on me after seeing the children in the ad. I know the message because I have just looked it up. If I had to explain it before doing so I would have said 'we were once obsessed with our breasts as children and we should be as a grown up', not quite the same message.

Even the explanation makes me want to run, or beat people around the head:

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Picture of young girls excited about changes in their breast development.

I can see-ish (at a push) where they were coming from and why they thought it was a good idea, but it just wasn't, at all. I don't understand how it even came to be made, I just think it was dodgy. Even the paragraph above upsets me hugely.

Breast cancer and early detection is such an important issue, 650 women die from breast cancer each year in Ireland and some of these deaths can be avoided with early detection. But I think an advert misses the spot if women want to turn over. Having discussed this with other women they felt the same as me about the campaign. What were they thinking.

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