Breast Cancer is the biggest killer of women in India (Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)). The biggest reason for this is late detection as women in India do not practice breast self-examination. Those who are aware of self-examination often don't know what to look for. One of the bigger reasons for self-examination failure is women being unaware and uncertain of their self-detection capability. This not only makes treatment difficult with a lowered chance of success but also exponentially more expensive than early detection cases. These facts make breast cancer survival rate in India half of that in the west. SBI Life Insurance, one of India's leading life insurance brands, wanted to change the way breast cancer is seen and dealt with in India - both rural and urban. The objective was to promote self-examination so that more women are empowered.

India is seeing a steady rise in the cases of Breast Cancer, with as many as 1,00,000 new cases being detected every year. Early detection is vital and can improve cure rates in about 80% of the cases. Many Indian women and their families rarely understand the importance of this issue and fail to undergo regular check-ups. This is a brilliantly created tool, that allows you to learn and understand what a lump would feel like. It is your way to start familiarising yourself.

We created the world’s first tactile tool made publicly available for self-detection of breast cancer, called Thanks A Dot that trained women to know what to look for during a self-examination. The tool provides touch-based learning that combines the concept of Braille letters with breast cancer mammography. A new alphabet was created that was made up of 3D shapes mimicking the shape and size of real Stage 1 breast cancer lumps. Research on tactile learning says that fingertips can be trained to increase sensitivity in detecting different textures and shapes. That's why Thanks a Dot uses puzzle solving as a learning mechanism to solve the challenge of memorability and active learning. The user is expected to solve the puzzle that is written using the thanks A dot alphabet by touch.

Statistics say that Breast cancer incidence age in India is 30 years old, down from 50 years old 20 years back (ICMR). Hence our target audience was all women in India starting age 27. The disparity in medical awareness is huge between urban and rural India. To enable adoption across audiences, the tool was made available for free. Different strategies were employed for both urban and rural demographics. A digital first strategy for urban India where media and influencer marketing drove the ordering of the free Thanks A Dot kits from the website was deployed accompanied with a 360-degree digital campaign comprising of videos, digital banners, and interactive forms. Rural India is defined by being media dark with low print and TV penetration. So the rural strategy to drive awareness and acceptance was on-ground activations done at scale using a breast cancer survivor.

The campaign kicked off with a video featuring a breast cancer survivor's story and with a CTA driving viewers to the website for ordering free kits. Social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) was activated through videos of breast cancer survivors and the promotion of the website. We further launched online tutorial videos featuring cancer survivors and oncologists who spoke about the tool and its benefits. Workshops were conducted in SBI Life Insurance offices with over 500 women being taught the usage of the tool. On the rural front, on-ground experiential workshops with breast cancer experts and survivors were conducted. Female village leaders were involved to help promote the kit across villages. Press was involved to help spread the word, driving more traffic to the website.

Timeline: 2 months so far (10 months to go)

Scale: 300 workshops across India, 10000 kits distributed

Collaborated with Indian Armed forces on their special request

The campaign created a wave of positive conversations about Breast cancer.

Over 10K kits were ordered online.

The campaign garnered 45M impressions

1M+ engagement

The campaign videos registered more than 100M+ views

Earned media worth 8.43M INR

The brand conducted workshops and trainings in more than 300 villages. Due to the simplicity and ease of use of the tool, an official request has come in from the Indian Army to bulk-source the kits for the armed forces members and their families.

Renowned personalities who are also cancer survivors supported the campaign ex. Indian cricketer (cancer survivor) Yuvraj Singh and veteran Indian actress (cancer survivor) Manisha Koirala

Support came from the field of sports, politics and media alike viz. former Australian cricketer Brett Lee, Indian cricketer Shashank Singh, former education minister Ashok Choudhary, and Indian Olympic medalist boxer Mary Kom have raised their support on Twitter too.