The Life Saving Wax

If so many women are comfortable enough to strip off in front of our beauticians, why are we still too embarrassed to take a potentially life-saving test? Two lives are lost to cervical cancer every day. Cervical screening can stop cancer before it starts, yet the number of eligible women attending cervical screening is at a 20-year low. ‘Feeling embarrassed’ is one of the main reasons why women are not attending. At the same time, 1.2 million women aged 25-35 go to salons for intimate waxing and three quarters of women listen to advice given by beauty therapists. Identifying this key behavioural insight, we sought to speak to this disengaged audience in a provocative and disruptive way, through an innovative cross sector partnership between beauty booking platform Treatwell and Public Health England. PHE provided the insights for Treatwell to train their unique national network of beauty therapists to raise the issue of cervical screening with clients. Leveraging the unique relationship between therapist and client and the safe space of the salon treatment room, beauty therapists we’re empowered to reposition screening as a vital part of the self-care routine. Proud Robinson + Partners developed the campaign strategy and creative and worked with sister agency freuds to deliver a UK wide PR launch of the initiative in May 2019.