There are 61,000 people in the UK living with secondary breast cancer. That means the cancer has spread to other parts of the body and is therefore incurable. It will, eventually, take their life. However, thanks to Breast Cancer Now's groundbreaking research, people can live healthier and longer lives as new treatments are developed to keep the cancer from spreading further.

The brief was to create a non-traditional campaign on a low budget, that raises awareness of the value of this research into secondary breast cancer. Show how it can give people diagnosed with this terminal disease hope that they can live to experience many of life’s important moments.

The objectives were to change people's perception of what a secondary breast cancer diagnosis means, how important research is, and garner as much earned media as possible to spread that message to the nation.

A photography exhibition, open to the public, of portraits from the future. Photographs showing people living with terminal cancer, the moments that they could live to see because of Breast Cancer Now's continuing research into new treatment options.

The photographs were created using a bespoke AI model trained specifically on the work of our photographer, to recreate her style, and not simply steal from unaffiliated artists and photographers on the web.

The majority of people living with secondary breast cancer are women aged between 55 and 70. However, it can still affect younger women and men also. So we enlisted a cast that reflected this diversity. Five women over 55, four younger than that, and one man, all living with incurable secondary breast cancer.

Likewise, our target audience was similarly diverse. We had paid social ads targeted to a wide variety of people in the London area, encouraging them to come to the gallery.

Also, we had paid social assets that told the story of the gallery and its participants that were targeted nationwide.

But perhaps the most important aspect of the PR strategy was to invite journalists and influencers to the exhibition opening event. Inspired by what they saw, it wasn't long before the story of the gallery was spreading across the nation on both traditional and non-traditional channels.

It was key that this exhibition was seen by as many people as possible and it felt as big and important as the topic itself. Therefore landing a high profile venue for it was paramount. The Saatchi Gallery in London provided exactly that.

We hosted a launch event where journalists and influencers connected with the charity or our target audience, were invited down. They shared news stories or content about the exhibition and its message.

As well as this earned media, we also created our own content around the gallery that would be shared on the charity's own social channels as well as paid social ads. These included a long and short form documentary telling the full story of the gallery, and 60-second content focusing on each participant individually and their unique experience living with secondary breast cancer.

As well as an overwhelmingly positive and emotive response from the thousands who visited the gallery in person, the story of it spread across multiple news sources on both traditional and non-traditional media.

Multiple participants were interviewed about their experience of being involved in the gallery on national television and radio, we had articles written in multiple national newspapers including the Daily Mail and Express, and an in-depth article was displayed on the homepage of the BBC News app - which has a whopping 65 million daily unique users. The BBC News Instagram also posted the article which received over 71,000 likes.

Overall it is estimated the campaign had a total reach of over 100 million, generating an earned media valuation of over £531,690.