Our More than hope campaign
In April 2024 we launched our new brand and now, during Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, we’re using our bold messaging in a campaign to build awareness and understanding of the disease.
This November we’re asking you to stand with us to bring more – more breakthroughs, more support, more noise, more action. And more survivors.
If you have experienced pancreatic cancer, you will know just how devastating it can be. Families are left with only hope to hold onto.
But people with pancreatic cancer deserve more than just hope. That’s why we’re asking you to stand with us to change the story.
The concept
Our campaign is based around a reverse poem. This is a poem with two opposite meanings, depending on which way you read it.
We understand that many people experience a sense of isolation and fear with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis which is what is depicted within the first reading. But in the reverse reading, a sense of action, community and ‘more than hope’ comes through, representing what we know is needed to transform survival.
Actor Tony Audenshaw in ITV’s Emmerdale who sadly lost his wife, Ruth, to pancreatic cancer in 2017, knows only too well the impact of this devastating disease. Watch the video below to hear Tony bring our poem to life.
Tony says, “Pancreatic Cancer UK gave great support to my family when my wife Ruth was ill, and it was an easy decision when I was asked to voice such a powerful and thoughtful poem. It’s frustrating to see that nearly a decade down the line research into the condition is still underfunded compared with other cancers.”
The outlook for families has been notoriously bleak, but as it says in the poem, “change is happening” and the advancement in early detection tests is a breakthrough which will save lives in the future and costly treatments going forward.
We are also hugely grateful to Bryony, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019, for supporting us with this campaign. Here is Bryony reading our ‘More than hope’ poem.
For me, more than hope is about tangible action that translates into meaningful change, like more people diagnosed soon enough for treatment, and more people making the five-year milestone.
With your support, we believe we can change the story and make the second reading of the poem a reality.
Through this campaign, we want to get more people supporting the cause – so we can bring more breakthroughs, more support, more noise, more action. More survivors. And together, deliver more than hope.
We can create a world where everyone with pancreatic cancer lives long and lives well. But we can’t do it without you.