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Brooke Walker ReportingA new breast cancer awareness campaign is being called the first of its kind. The campaign was created by two local high school students and is unique because it motivates men to motivate women.
In Utah, over 1,100 mothers, wives, sisters and daughters will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
LaVelle Edwards: "Consider how empty our lives would be without these special women by our side."
Ron McBride: "Insist she has a test every year."
And Danny White: "Tell her, 'You would if you loved me.'"
Three very recognizable Utah men promoting the same message. Shelley Stringer and Angie Phelps both have personal connections to this campaign they created for their Marketing class. Angie lost her grandmother to breast cancer and Shelley's aunt is in remission. They decided to take a different approach and market the message to men.
Angie Phelps: "It's mostly women telling women to get a mammogram, and it's usually just enforced the same way. So we felt, if it were men encouraging women, they would be touched by the rare encouragement."
So the two Davis High School seniors contacted some of the most encouraging men they could think of.
"We were quite shocked when they agreed to help us, but we were so excited because their fame helped our campaign so much. It helped influence to pay attention to our message and listen to what people had to say."
And people are listening. The commercial now airs locally on KSL and Comcast. The cable network helped produce the 30-second spot and now airs it on several channels, including CNN, ESPN and Comedy Central, programming with a large target audience.
Angie Phelps: "If it were their wife or someone got breast cancer, it's going to effect your life just as much as the woman."
The girls entered their campaign in the national DECA competition and placed second. They will now take it to the national competition in Texas next month.
