When Publicis Groupe’s CEO Arthur Sadoun was diagnosed with cancer in 2022 and went public with his story, he received thousands of messages of support from employees. Through those conversations was the resounding message that in addition to being scared for their lives in the face of a cancer diagnosis, too many felt scared for their jobs and were often inclined to hide their illness from their employers. Further, many didn’t know about the resources that existed to help them through their treatment journey. Sadoun was inspired to develop a global initiative to reduce the stigma of dealing with cancer at work directly, and those serving as a caregiver for a loved one with a diagnosis. With that, Working with Cancer was launched to take concrete action and rally both the business community and consumers around supporting those managing chronic illness in the workplace.

Creative was grounded in the sobering statistic that 50% of all people who are diagnosed with cancer are afraid to tell their employer. Why do they feel that way? Because they fear for the safety of their jobs, the security of their healthcare and the impact on their career path. The overarching goal of all creative work was to drive awareness for CEOs and business leaders that this is an emotional topic that is affecting their employees.

The visual approach was driven by the 50% statistics - print and OOH showed a face split apart by the statistic. Film leaned into the isolation that cancer patients may feel, going about their workdays while secretly struggling beneath the surface.

Led by our thought-provoking stat that 50% of people will have cancer in their lifetimes, we used a two-pronged approach. First, we recruited credible partners including leading cancer institutions and founding company pledge partners to our launch in the US, UK and France. Secondly, we launched a campaign to build awareness and provoke action. #workingwithcancer called on companies to make public pledges to fight cancer and its stigmas in the workplace. 

We focused on reaching the leadership of the largest companies in order to make the biggest real-world impact. We knew that changing a company’s policies worked top-down, so we targeted leadership via specific comms. We also used key cultural moments, such as Davos, Super Bowl and World Cancer Day, to create mass awareness to spur conversation in the workplace to ensure coverage against smaller businesses where employees are more closely connected to top leadership to spur change more quickly.

We kicked off phase one at Davos asking the global business community to join our pledge. Paid media timed to Davos included C-Suite targeted newspaper, business site homepage takeovers and premium placements the week of Jan 16, 2023. Phase one also included donated B2B media to feature the “Work/Life” film (TV primarily in the U.S.) and C-suite targeted OLV and OLA assets globally. Phase two launched on January 31 timed to World Cancer Day (Feb 4) and Super Bowl (Feb 12). This broader messaging drove awareness and conversation for all employees to help build a more supportive workplace leading to better recovery. Over $100M in donated media helped get the word out across Cinema, Print, Video, Social, Digital, Audio, and OOH - including many prime placements in Times Square, NYC for launch-World Cancer Day and celebrity/influencers posting their support.

Our 390 pledge signees include Fortune 100 companies, all of whom have committed to ending the stigma of working with cancer. These 390 pledgees represent, in total, over 13M employees who will be impacted by this work. Additionally, across paid and earned media, the campaign garnered over 2 billion impressions.

Coming off of this first campaign phase, Publicis has appointed a program lead and intends to continue recruiting pledge sign ups, provide a list of actions and resources for pledge signees, and working to reduce the stigma for a mass audience with further campaign phases.