It’s October! Aside from being GFTS’s birthday month and Halloween, October is also Breast Cancer Awareness month. I’m not complaining. Too many women in my family have faced breast or ovarian cancer. It’s good to see headlines like this, especially after I lost my grandfather in January to colon cancer.

Classes could be taught about the branding of October and the color pink with breast cancer. It makes sense for Avon, Yoplait, Lean Cuisine and KitchenAide to think pink. The last time I was in Target, I noticed that HP had special computer paper with a pink wrapper for the month. Now you can print for a cure, but destroy a rain forest in the process.

Over the weekend, I caught Lifetime’s campaign, “Be My Bra” and my jaw dropped.

Are they serious? Was this campaign created by men?

I can actually see the brainstorming session behind this campaign:

Women get breast cancer.

Women wear bras.

Bras provide support to women’s breasts.

Women seek support from their friends.

Let’s refer to women’s friends as “bras!”

Make it pink, launch in the month of October and you have a successful campaign.

Mya even recorded a song entitled, “My Bra.”

According to this story, “bra” is slang for a friend. Did I miss something? Does anyone actually refer to their girlfriends as their “bras?”

I can’t decide if I dislike referring to my close girlfriends as lingerie items or the sheer corniness of the campaign. Can’t we all just wear pink and sing Melissa Etheridge’s “I Run for Life?”

Cancer is a serious threat that has personally touched my life way too many times to mention here. I hate campaigns that trivialize the disease. Doesn’t this pink wash breast cancer? Will seeing a “Be My Bra” ad encourage women to get annual mammograms, or merely drive the ratings of Lifetime for the month of October with a catchy song and cute graphics?

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 10:51 pm and is filed under PR/Marketing, family from the south. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.