Lifetime Pulls Out All Stops Advocacy Initiative
13th Annual Multiplatform ‘Stop Breast Cancer For Life’ Campaign Is Largest Ever
By Multi Channel News Staff -- Multichannel News, 10/2/2007 7:47:00 AM
Lifetime Television’s 13th annual “Stop Breast Cancer for Life” campaign will be the network’s largest ever, with the awareness and advocacy initiative encompassing on-air, online and print messaging throughout National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.
The new “Be My Strength, Be My Support, Be My Bra” campaign -- the latter term is slang for “friend”-- was developed by advertising executive Linda Kaplan Thaler, award-winning photographer Mary Ellen Mark and Cancer Vixen author Marisa Acocella Marchetto, all of whom are breast cancer survivors.
The campaign, featuring such notables as Fran Drescher, Daisy Fuentes, Whoopi Goldberg, Patti LaBelle, Ricki Lake, Reba McEntire, Mya, Holly Robinson Peete, Ronde Baarber and Jake Delhomme, is designed to encourage more women and men to become part of a support system to promote early detection, donate to or volunteer for local charities and offer hope and friendship to those facing breast cancer.
All three creators appear in the public service announcement spots, as well as other survivors, activists and celebrities.
In addition, the advocacy effort includes its first-ever theme song, “My Bra,” recorded by Grammy Award-winning singer Mya, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor. The song, written specifically for Lifetime’s effort by multi-platinum songwriter Kara DioGuardi (Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion Faith Hill) and Grammy-winning producer/songwriter James Poyser (Common, The Roots/Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill), is being featured in various on-air and online elements, including the Lifetime original movie Matters of Life & Dating, which premieres Oct. 22 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT). The telefilm stars Lake as a single woman living with breast cancer who relies on help from her friends, including Robinson Peete, who returns to the dating scene following her mastectomy.
In the cable community, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter, Cablevision, Insight, Bright House, Mediacom, Suddenlink, CableOne, plus many other operators, are participating in the initiative, the most ever for the campaign.
Lifetime has also teamed with Comcast and breastcancer.org to create a video on demand and broadband companions, entitled Breast Cancer Hope, which offer viewers/users new, original educational content, featuring Dr. Marissa Weiss, founder of breastcancer.org; a behind-the-scenes look at Brides Magazine’s “Something Pink” fundraising effort featuring top designers such as Oscar de la Renta and Nicole Miller; and original movies and episodes of series previously aired on Lifetime.
Digitally, a new version of the 2006 award-winning “Stop Breast Cancer for Life” mini-site can be found at LifetimeTV.com, along with “My Bra” and the first-ever “sneak peek” of a Lifetime Original Movie “Matters of Life & Dating” on iTunes.
This year’s “Stop Breast Cancer for Life” initiative is sponsored by Lean Cuisine, Campbell’s, Payless and Cancer Treatment Centers of America, with advertising support online from Lean Cuisine and Arimidex (AstraZeneca).
“For 13 years, Lifetime has taken the lead in the cable industry by raising awareness of this terrible disease which claims the life of one woman every 13 minutes,” said Meredith Wagner, executive vice president, public affairs, Lifetime Networks, in a statement. “This year, we are honored to work with a veritable who’s who of stars contributing their talents, along with partnerships with nearly 200 distributors, advertising sponsors and 12 leading non-profit organizations, all banding together to fight breast cancer,”
