Increasing Awareness of Prostate Cancer in Waterloo Station

The Problem: A prostate cancer charity had a stand in Waterloo train station, but did not get that much engagement.

The Solution: Target wives, sisters and mothers in public, and men in private with toilet advertising to reduce the embarrassment factor.

Recently in London Waterloo train station there was a stand advertising the dangers of prostate cancer; a printed wall behind a table and several people in t-shirts milling around trying to talk to people about prostate cancer. While the intent of this effort was great, it didn’t seem to be the most effective way of spreading the message.

Firstly, the message was not clear – there were no visible risk factors or statistics on display, just A4 size posters people would need to go up close to to read. Given that embarrassment is a large cause of men not engaging with these risks, that seemed an oversight – a much better stand would have had the two or three key takeaways printed in large type, visible from tens of metres away (possibly also on the floor, so people could read the information while pretending to look at their phones). People move through Waterloo quickly so there is minimal engagement likely to happen with the people in t-shirts, so messages must be quick and memorable.

Furthermore, to encourage further engagement and avoid the embarrassment issue, women should have been the key focus of the campaign, focusing on providing them with information to look after the welfare of their husbands/sons/fathers. It is often far easier to talk to women about the issue than to men.

Finally, one location where the message could be very well-targeted at men in a location where they have the time and inclination to read A4 posters is in the toilets. Going to the toilet is dead time, so having something to read on the wall is useful to pass the time and men naturally look at the wall above a urinal/toilet, or the back of a cubicle door. It is noteworthy that there are adverts for Erectile Dysfunction in the cubicles, a clever approach as it offers a discrete way for men to get information on what is an embarrassing topic.

I walked through Waterloo at least five times past the prostate cancer stand and I am still none the wiser about the symptoms or risk factors. But I do know that Erectile Dysfunction (ED) is more common among UK men than the name Ed, because that is on the ED adverts in the toilets. It shows which advertising is the most effective, and hints at how to get public health information across to people.