This fear can be fatal: #Preventiophobia

The colorectal cancer month of March 2020 is themed "Preventiophobia - When the fear of colorectal cancer screening is greater than the fear of cancer". The Felix Burda Foundation wants to use this new word to sensitize more people to the importance of preventive medical checkups. The Munich agency Serviceplan Health & Life is responsible for the concept and awareness campaign. In addition to print ads and radio spots, a TV spot featuring cabaret artist Sissi Perlinger and actor Wayne Carpendale was created.

Munich, February 17, 2020 — Every year around 60,400 people in Germany are newly diagnosed with colorectal cancer. One in 17 men and one in 20 women are diagnosed with the disease during their lifetime. As a result, around 24,300 people die of this type of cancer every year, which can be prevented by timely screening. Thanks to the annual colorectal cancer month of March and the attention it generates for the prevention of colorectal cancer, around 7.4 million people have already taken part in screening colonoscopy since the examination was introduced in 2002. As a result, approximately 139,000 deaths and 290,000 new cases have been prevented to date.

Although the figures show that the statutory offer of colorectal cancer screening is effective, it has so far been taken up by too few insured persons: Only around 1.8 percent of eligible women and men use preventive colonoscopy every year. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the fear of the examination plays an important role in this.

"The principle of precaution and prevention is incomprehensible to many," says Carsten Frederik Buchert, Director Marketing & Communications of the Felix Burda Foundation. "Instead of taking precautions as a healthy person, precaution is avoided in an almost phobic way. Until it is possibly too late!"

In order to counteract this, Serviceplan Health & Life has designed and implemented a campaign that addresses this very issue. The neologism "Preventiophobia" means the fear of colon cancer screening. In the TV spot Wayne Carpendale and Sissi Perlinger convincingly act out the roles of the mad phobic and the doctor who in the end explains: "There are many phobias. But only one can be fatal: Preventiophobia".

The TVC, directed by Gabriel Borgetto, was produced and realized in cooperation with the film production Neverest. The spot will be broadcast pro bono on numerous TV stations supporting the colorectal cancer month of March from mid-February 2020.