Creative Corner: Sheba helps cat owners feel loved, nude images save lives and Classic FM breaks out Christmas

The clocks go back on Sunday, which is usually the cue to accept that it’s dark and cold by teatime.

Classic FM has skipped that stage and gone straight to a freezing Christmas. There's also cats and nudes (separately) this week. Lots to explain, so here’s what stood out.

Yard NYC asks women to take a good look at themselves

These posters in Williamsburg do not look like health advice: SEND NUDES, in heavy black type, sits beside a topless photo with a QR code placed over the chest. Scan it and the joke turns as the nudes are for the person taking them.

New York agency Yard NYC, which is independent and women-owned and led, has marked Breast Cancer Awareness Month by asking women to take a topless photo for themselves and keep it in their camera roll, so they have a reference for what’s normal and can spot when something changes.

The campaign site’s line is ‘Good nudes save lives’, and it points anyone who notices a change to a healthcare provider. The photos are a reference, of course, not a diagnosis, but the photos on the posters come from real women who shared them for the project.

The thinking is that women scrutinise every line on their face and every grey hair, and rarely their own breasts. 

Yard says more than six in ten women aren’t confident they’d notice a change, a figure credited to research in the World Journal of Clinical Oncology. The audience is also younger than most breast health messaging assumes; according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), incidence in US women under 50 rose by about 1.4% a year between 2012 and 2022, roughly double the rate for older women. BCRF adds that nearly 80% of younger women who are diagnosed find the abnormality themselves, and that most under 40 aren’t yet in routine screening.

It’s personal for the agency, as CEO Ruth Bernstein has had early breast cancer herself. Caroline Seklir says awareness campaigns have a long habit of telling women what to worry about, and this one gives them something to do instead. 

‘Save your nudes’ isn’t advice you hear every day, but Yard’s line is that good ones save lives.

Sheba knows your cat isn’t impressed

I’m a dog person, which is a tidy way of saying I need a pet that’s pleased to see me as much as I am pleased to be cooing over it. Every time. Excited. Needy. So Sheba’s latest campaign hits a nerve. According to the launch, ‘Does my cat love me?’ is one of the questions cat owners Google most. Oof.

Research Sheba commissioned with the Waltham Petcare Science Institute found more than half of cat parents in the UK, France and the US have wondered if their kitty cares about them. In Sheba’s survey of UK owners, one in five said their cat leaves the room when they walk in, and one in ten had spent a significant amount of time researching how to make their cat love them.

AMV BBDO’s answer is Ignored to Adored, a 12 day programme promising to turn an aloof cat into an affectionate one with Sheba - or your money back, naturally. 

The campaign is fronted by people who are loved by everyone except their cat. Haley Lu Richardson of The White Lotus has Darbin. Singer Cat Burns (nice) won over millions of fans on The Celebrity Traitors and isn’t convinced she’s won over her cat Ollie. Olympic gold medallist Ilia Malinin gave his medal to his rescue cat and was met with total indifference. A runner, Aaron Beggs, who gave up a personal best to help an exhausted rival at the Boston Marathon gets the same treatment at home. 

Dogs, for the record, adore you for free. A cat that finally comes round has made up its own mind about you, which I suspect is the better feeling, and one I’ve never had the nerve to earn.

Classic FM breaks the ice way ahead of Christmas

It isn’t Halloween yet and Aled Jones is already bloomin’ defrosting. Classic FM has launched Classic FM Christmas, which Global says is the UK’s first radio station dedicated entirely to Christmas classical music, with carols, orchestral and choral favourites and film scores.

To announce it, the station released a video in which it put its mid-morning presenter - and classical Christmas icon - in a giant block of ice. The opening notes of Walking in the Air drift in, he stirs, stands and sings his way out, smashing the ice and officially starting Christmas before Mariah’s whistle register is even a distant shrill. Her ‘it’s time’ video lands every 1 November, and the 2023 one had her thawed out of a block of ice by people in Halloween costumes armed with hairdryers. So, technically, Mariah has already thawed out in autumn, but this time Classic FM got there before 1 November. Touché, Aled.

There’s more than a touch of pantomime about it, which, as the nights draw in and the temperature drops, I’m not entirely mad about in October.

That's it for this week's Creative Corner!

If you’ve seen something that’s caught your eye, or if you’ve been working on something you’re particularly proud of, please do get in touch via emily.barnes@fanclubpr.com. I’d love to hear about it.