Don’t Assume, Be Assured (DABA) was sparked by a conversation the team had about their families’ medical history. They discovered that three out of four in the team, had relatives who were previously diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC). Call it coincidence, but this seemingly insignificant statistic is telling of the cancer’s prevalence in Singapore. There are nearly 1,900 people afflicted with Singapore’s most common cancer each year. However, governmental and institutional efforts towards CRC awareness and screening were still mainly aimed towards the most at-risk group (i.e. those above the age of 50). This results in younger Singaporeans remaining oblivious to their increasing risk of developing CRC. DABA was thus created as the first local health communication campaign that aims to plug the knowledge gap of CRC among younger Singaporeans and empower them through the simple act of stool checking – in hopes that CRC can be detected as early as possible.
DABA adopted a light-hearted tone which set it apart from other local CRC campaigns that utilised a more serious, top-down approach. As CRC is a sensitive issue and stools are also generally considered disgusting to talk about, the campaign managed to make these topics more accessible to their target audience with the tagline ‘Don’t be a fool, check your poo’ and our unique graphics. This included the usage of ‘Poop Pals’ mascots which fronted the campaign as various types of stools and manifested CRC symptoms. In addition, the campaign’s logo depicts the silhouette of buttocks on a toilet bowl, in order to address CRC without potentially repelling their target audience due to their reluctance to discuss mortality as well as to present a more casual front about the importance of checking one’s stools in the toilet.
Watch the video below to see if people have the habit to check their stool.
The Highlights
The opportunity to reach out to fellow Singaporeans and make a difference in their lives.
Throughout their various roadshows and campaign tactics, the team received much constructive and positive feedback from their target audience. Many cited not knowing about this prominent issue in Singapore before the campaign and felt enlightened after hearing the campaign’s messages. Moreover, results from the team’s post-campaign evaluation also revealed that individuals who interacted with the campaign yielded higher behavioural intentions to eventually pick up some form of CRC screening in the future.
The chance to lead a campaign from start to end.
Not many people, without prior work experience, can say that they have spearheaded a campaign before. Through this project, the team was able to put their various skills garnered throughout their four years in NTU to good use. It was a valuable experience because the team learnt things on the go and received a lot of guidance from industry experts as well as their professor. In addition, as the campaign was fully autonomous, this also taught the team the importance of being accountable for the work entrusted to them.
Being a thought leader in the health sector by developing interesting tactics to promote CRC knowledge.
As the campaign’s approach towards colorectal cancer (CRC) was slightly unorthodox, targeted at Singaporeans under 50 and using a slightly more tongue-in-cheek approach to broach the taboo topic of CRC, the campaign’s concept was highly original.
The team also challenged health campaign conventions and questioned the effectiveness of solely carrying out CRC educational initiatives to those 50 and above – despite the rising numbers of CRC in those under 50. Therefore, the team felt that their campaign was able to plug a pertinent knowledge gap in a currently non-targeted, increasingly at-risk group of Singaporeans, 40 to 49.
One of the campaign’s partners, the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS), took inspiration from the campaign’s poop pals and usage of the Bristol Stool Chart to craft up their own type of similarly angled collaterals for CRC awareness month.
The Memories
Reflection #1 – The Challenges
COVID-19 resulted in all main partnership events getting canceled.
Prior to COVID-19’s risk assessment reaching DORSCON Orange, DABA was confirmed for roadshows at Singapore Cancer Society – TalkMed Relay for Life 2020, National Cancer Centre Singapore’s Run for Hope, and National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS) Ribbon Challenge. The team was also in the midst of discussing with NCIS how their campaign could potentially helm the CRC segment of their Pre-Ribbon Event roadshows at National University Hospital (NUH). However, these roadshows were canceled. The team had to thereafter re-conceptualise their initial offline efforts to a more digitally-led approach. In addition, the team approached Woodlands Regional Library to hold smaller roadshows and a mini-exhibition in their vicinity. This in turn allowed the team to meet with their intended key performance indicators as well as to still personally reach out to members of the public.
Minimal local literature about CRC and our target audience.
As local research pertaining to CRC and Singaporeans’ attitude towards the cancer was found to be lacking, the team encountered a lot of difficulties looking for relevant literature that could shed light on Singapore’s current CRC situation. Hence, to supplement their lack of medical knowledge, the team interviewed local CRC specialists to better understand what they were dealing with.
In addition, local information on CRC incidence among younger Singaporeans was found to be scarce and often lacked proper data analysis. The team had to personally analyse and sieve out data specific to their campaign using data analysis methods.
Time for the campaign was very short.
The entire duration of the campaign – from conceptualisation to execution to resolution – took place within a time frame of seven months. As a result, the team constantly felt overwhelmed and at times even lost amidst the work. To combat this, the team’s leader as well as programme manager set up a task allocation sheet to designate work as equally as possible and left it to the individual portfolios to write up their own to-dos as a way of keeping accountability. The team leader would then follow up with progress reports from each portfolio and would reallocate tasks if one felt overwhelmed.
Reflection #2 – The Takeaways
The knowledge learnt in school is put to good use.
Don’t Assume, Be Assured enabled the team to apply everything they had learnt in university and enact real change amongst the public. Spanning almost a year from the planning stages to execution without much supervision from their professor, the team learnt how to pace themselves and take ownership of their work to continue driving the campaign forward. The team also had to learn how to react quickly in a crisis, wherein they adapted their tactics to accommodate the sudden changes caused by COVID-19.
The team did not only learn and understand the importance of public health campaigns. This experience also affirmed the benefits of straying away from the status quo and pushing the boundaries of communication to create more impactful and effective campaigns.
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