Think HQ Partners With Cancer Council Victoria to Engage With Multicultural Audiences to Increase Bowel Screening

Working with multicultural community groups in Victoria, positive change agency Think HQ has created a campaign for bowel screening for Cancer Council Victoria. The campaign specifically targets Victorian Punjabi, Hindi, and Vietnamese-speaking groups to encourage the use of bowel screening tests. 

Australians aged 50-74 receive a free home bowel screening test kit in the mail every two years from the Australian Government as part of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. 

Cancer Council Victoria identified the need to create culturally sensitive and contextually relevant content for Hindi, Punjabi, and Vietnamese speaking communities as data shows that people who speak a language other than English at home screen at a lower rate compared to the state’s average. Recent figures show bowel screening participation rates in Victoria have dropped in the past year from 46.5 per cent to just 43.9 per cent. 

Working with CultureVerse, the agency’s multicultural communication and community engagement arm, Think HQ worked directly with copywriters and leaders from these communities for this campaign. Using Cancer Council Victoria funded research, which found the specific barriers to bowel screening for each community, the team created messages around cultural moments that could enable a change in attitude and behaviour. These enablers - including family time, cooking, and exercise - then became the central focus of the in-language creative outputs. Each video concludes with a Victorian General Practitioner from each respective community who delivered an in-language call to action: take the test today. 

Head of media and communications, Prevention Division at Cancer Council Victoria, Kelly Dienaar said, “Research shows that Australians who speak a language other than English participate in bowel screening at a much lower rate. Often, members of these communities face significant barriers to screening, ranging from not being aware of their risk of bowel cancer to waiting until symptoms occur before taking action or believing that their diet will protect them.”

She continued, “To address the disparities in bowel screening participation rates, customised engagement and marketing strategies were crafted, leveraging research insights that identified optimal communication channels and messaging that would resonate effectively with the members of these communities.”

Andy Lima, chief creative officer, Think HQ, said, “Think HQ collaborated with writers from the Vietnamese, Punjabi, and Hindi communities to create an innovative campaign using our collective creativity approach. The co-created campaign resonated with all three audiences and effectively addressed specific community concerns through its messaging, language, and visuals. Unlike traditional campaigns that prioritise English, this one was developed directly in each language and was continually tested with community members throughout the process.”

Jess Billimoria, head of CultureVerse, said, “When we include community members right from the start we get improved outcomes, as our creative is informed by their experiences, as well as an understanding of the language. Going a step further to find and work with copywriters from each of the communities has taken the work to another level.”