Buzz Dies Down Halfway Through Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Every year, October 1st kicks off a deluge of pink products in the name of breast cancer awareness month. The initial push consists of hundreds of organizations and corporations campaigning for donations, daily news articles and press releases, getting loads of camera time on the Today Show plugging the pink fashion accessories of the year, features in beauty magazines like SELF or Glamour, and celebrities like Christina Applegate who are personally affected by breast cancer speak out and make appearances on Oprah, while others hit the red carpet at celebrity filled fundraising events. And it all helps to generate the intended result: raising awareness about breast cancer.

But what also happens every year, after about two weeks of being bombarded with breast cancer awareness tips, facts and fundraisers, truckloads of pink ribbon fashion accessories, the media attention starts to taper off, news stories slow down to a trickle, and the heightened level of breast cancer awareness for the general public starts to change back from its Red to Orange stage (much like homeland security alerts) down to its more calming Blue (guarded) / Green (low) levels.

Don't get me wrong, I think the progress that has been made by designating October as Breast Cancer Awareness month is huge, as you can see in this year-over-year growth trend in searches on Google:



The bottom graph more noticeably indicates the growth in news stories and media attention for Breast Cancer Awareness Month since 2004. The search volume graph may not be detailed enough to give you the specifics on when October awareness starts to taper off, but you can clearly see it outpaces the rest of the year by far. Which is a pretty sad fact.

If you look at specific data for the website for the Susan G. Komen foundation, one of the biggest organizations out there raising awareness and support for breast cancer research, you can see a more specific pattern develop:



You can see that sharp dropoff in traffic to their website starts about mid-October, looking back at 2007, since the data isn't quite there yet for 2008 breast cancer awareness. I would venture an educated guess, it's headed in the same direction.

As I've said in previous posts, breast cancer (among other cancers) is something that has greatly affected my family, so this is a personal mission for me. This year I've made a special effort to point out products and companies who make specific donation pledges to breast cancer awareness organizations, in part because of some of the general push back from organizations like Think Before You Pink and journalists who comment on the annual avalanche of pink products.

My personal position on it is - yes, you should always make your best effort to purchase pink ribbon products which go to reputable research and support organizations. But the purchase of any product which helps raise money for research and awareness, is a gift to a survivor or comforts a person currently battling breast cancer is recognition of a worthy cause, whether it donates officially or not.

Beyond that, I also think it's important to look for companies and products that donate money for pink ribbon purchases made during an extended amount of time - beyond October only sales. For example, the pink ribbon watch by GUESS has been one of the most popular pieces of breast cancer jewelry for the last three years, and for this edition the donation period lasts from October 2008 to March 2009. I prominently feature eBags.com at the bottom of every page, because they donate a portion of pink ribbon sales all year long. Plenty of other companies make an extended pledge to donate, you just have to do a little more research to find them.

Again, I do believe that this massive collaboration of efforts for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month has done an enormous amount of good, and raised millions of dollars towards finding a cure, but we still have so far to go. Perhaps the key is making the public aware that there are always other ways to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for the cure beyond and before October hits on the calendar.

The bottom line is that breast cancer jewelry, pink ribbon t-shirts and clothing or accessories can be worn year round, showing true support for the cause, something we need to see more of after October ends. And that's what really counts.





See All The Pink Ribbon Product Picks for October 2008 Breast Cancer Awareness Month