Australia has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world: at least two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by age 70, and over 2000 people die from the disease each year.
It’s also responsible for the highest cancer-related cost to our health system. Over a billion dollars each year.
It will, in some way, affect nearly every Australian at some point in their lives.
So you’d think we’d all be aware of the dangers, and be habitually slapping on the SPF 50 and a wide-brimmed hat every time we go out in the sun.
However, one in four 25–45 year olds are getting sunburned every weekend in the summer months. Ouch!
There hasn’t been a national sun protection campaign in Australia for nearly 15 years. And the highly successful ‘Slip, Slap, Slop’ messaging, once well and truly ingrained in the national culture and psyche is in its 40th year, is getting lost on younger generations who didn’t grow up with it on repeat.
It’s clear that times have changed. But the sun hasn’t.
SomeOne has teamed up with our long-time collaborators, Cancer Council, to drive a new message targetting MPs and policy-makers in an attempt to secure mass funding over the next three years to produce a new national sun protection campaign.
The line ‘The job’s not done, until we’re all safe in the sun’ references the lack of government funding over the past decade and a half, despite melanoma case numbers rising each year, as well as highlighting our community’s responsibility to protect themselves.
Working with a limited budget (and the help of image retouching wizard Dave Mercer) we produced a series of ‘track-stopping’ imagery that showcases a variety of Australian’s who’ve left their sun protection efforts half-finished. A striking contrast between the measures necessary to protect ourselves from harmful UV rays and the reality of how people hit the beaches and parks across the nation.
This campaign truly aims to service Australian society and its impact (if successful) will see $60 million put towards helping to promote SunSmart behaviours and prevent skin cancer for the next three years.