susan g. komen Archives - Claxon Communication

Take Back the Pink — What cause will pink choose?

Earlier this week, we looked at how a name can frame an issue or idea. So can color.

The AIDS movement brought “color for a cause” into the mainstream with the red ribbon. Susan G. Komen took it to new heights with pink. They successfully made pink synonymous with breast cancer. From travel mugs to cupcake baking cups, you could pinkify your life and help erase breast cancer. Seemed like a win-win.

At some point, pink fatigue set in. Terms like “pink-washing” and “pink think” popped up. Organizations like Think Before You Pink were created to counter the proliferation of pink products flooding the market.

When the news hit that Komen would no longer fund Planned Parenthood, the pump was primed for some pink bashing. And heads they did a-roll.

Now that the crisis has passed, the question is: what will become of pink?

Here are two options:

#1 Carry on with business as usual
#2 Give pink a second lease on life

Pink is currently framed as the color of breast cancer. Perhaps it should be re-framed more broadly as the color of women’s health.

Breast cancer is a women’s health issue. So are heart disease, depression, and osteoporosis. In North America, women out-live men by up to 10 years and on average 3.1 of those years are reduced quality. We’ve gotta get serious about getting women healthy. Maybe pink can help us do it.

Heck, if red can be the color of choice for both AIDS and heart disease and Valentine’s Day can become Generosity Day, the door’s wide open for pink’s next job to be raising awareness about women’s health so that loads more women can lead happier, healthier lives.

Mind you re-framing wouldn’t be a piece of pink cake. Re-framing takes work. Allison Fine, Beth Kanter, Stephanie Rudat, Amy Sample Ward, Lucy Bernholz, Tom Watson, Lisa Colton, and others kicked things off on Super Bowl Sunday with Take Back the Pink (#takebackthepink). This effort was focused on making pink about breast cancer as a cause, rather than Komen as an organization. It got the ball rolling.

What do you think? What should pink’s next job be? Should pink take on women’s health or stick with breast cancer?

Earlier this week, news got out that Susan G. Komen had decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood, leaving more than 870,000 women without access to breast cancer screenings. These screenings save lives.

This post isn’t a blow by blow of how this all went down. This post is about silence.

After two days of “no comment”, Nancy G. Brinker, Founder & CEO of Susan G. Komen, released a video. In the video, she never mentions Planned Parenthood. Not once. She talks about the grant review process they initiated in 2010 and how it will affect many of their partners. But no mention of the frenzy swirling around their decision to de-fund one specific partner–Planned Parenthood. Kinda weird. Kinda too bad.

By not addressing the real issue, Brinker’s attempt to “set the record straight” backfires. There were many natural opportunities to mention Planned Parenthood. It didn’t need to be the whole story, but it’s clearly a big piece of the story. Not mentioning it only makes that part of the story a bigger deal.

In today’s world of YouTube, social media and immediate access, you’ve got to be real. Using tactics–like a scripted video–fall flat. They come across as inauthentic, especially when you’ve got an 800 pound gorilla in your video that you don’t so much as bat an eye at!

You can come up with all the great messaging and talking points you want. In a case like this, it doesn’t matter one lick. Why? Because it’s not what you say that matters, it’s what people hear and it’s what they feel. When all you do is put out a tightly controlled speech that is almost completely void of emotion, what people hear is that you don’t really want to set the record straight or, taking it one step further, make it right. You just want the PR craziness to go away.

The only way to truly set the record straight is to engage. Give interviews. Do live webcasts. Blog and respond to comments. Put yourself out there!

The lesson: Silence is not always golden. (Komen should’ve learned this with the Pink Bucket Debacle.) When you do talk, be real. There’s a time and place for speeches and scripts. Now’s not that time. Now’s the time to be real. A lot of women are depending on it.

NOTE: If you’re interested in great coverage on this story, check out Kivi Leroux Miller’s post. She’s become a one-woman Komen-Planned Parenthood news channel and is doing an exceptional job. I’m grateful for all her tireless work on this.

Tag: susan g. komen

Color as Cause: Where does pink go from here?

Silence is not always golden: The Komen-Planned Parenthood Brouhaha