The colour of money
Blogger Barbara Docherty isn’t so sure about pink week
Thursday, October 08, 2009
It’s hard to miss Breast Cancer Week. Everything becomes so tiring from looking at all that pink, particularly when restaurants serve pink sauces.
Not that I disagree with the intent. It’s always worth remembering important statistics such as the 640 New Zealand women who die annually from breast cancer. But when it seems like the commercial intent could be infiltrating general practice it makes me wonder.
A practice nurse told me their practice was “honouring the significance of breast cancer” by giving away pink balloons, the nurses wore pink blouses and every female over the age of 14 was given brochures and pens – in bright pink of course.
A good initiative I thought until I heard no one in the practice was interested in putting the same effort into AIDS awareness week or Blue Friday for prostate cancer because no one had provided them with the free “goodies”.
Organisations have to get their funds from somewhere and that requires clever marketing.
While we can support the cause in general practice (even if it means wearing the organisations representative colour) so be it but I can’t see the point in being selective.
Almost the same number of men die from prostate cancer as women do from breast cancer and many other worthy organisations seek public attention and financial assistance in the same month as breast cancer – hospice, Habitat for Humanity, mental health – but they don’t get the same attention.
Alcohol kills1000 New Zealanders each year – twice as many as a category 5 pandemic but there is no alcohol awareness week or the wearing of black ribbons in general practice.
Intense marketing usually involves pulling emotional heart strings but also creates competition between organisations so some will miss out.
General practice is the perfect place to support or drive awareness campaigns for all these groups but should we be supporting one organisation more than another just because their campaigns are slicker?
Pharmaceutical companies have always wooed us with lunches and pens. Did I use their product because of those fantastic pens?
Of course not. Well maybe subliminally.