Leading the narrative to shut down taboos
December 23, 2021 | Iknoor Kaur
The heart of any conversation is its ability to shape perspectives and opinions. One of the most influential aspects of social media thus is its capacity to integrate various opinions through a common delivery system. This helps democratise content and build important narratives which influence change. The core idea behind all the content created on SPAG Dialogue over the last year and a half has been focussed on doing just this. This fall, we took our endeavours a step further by initiating key campaigns around topics that aren’t necessarily discussed widely in the public domain. We started this on World Contraception Day, sustained it through World Mental Health Day and concluded it with Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Sexual health is not an easy topic of conversation especially in conservative setups. However, we picked this as a starting point to establish a safe space for conversation. Aruna Chawla, the co-founder of Salad Condoms shared in a candid chat with us how contraception is till date sexualised instead of being looked at from a health perspective. In our podcast, she highlighted the importance of normalising use of contraception while advocating the importance of safe sex. This set the ball rolling for us at SPAG Dialogue. Thus, on World Mental Health Day we released a video that took a hard look at statistics to highlight how stigmatised mental healthcare is for men and women and how the pandemic has only made it worse.
October every year is observed as the breast cancer awareness month. At SPAG Dialogue, we didn’t want to simply create content on the subject but actively work towards building a conversation. Our objective was clear – a 360-degree approach covering every aspect of breast cancer. We wanted to not only create awareness about the process from detection to treatment, but also give a voice to survivors and include people in a conversation that breaks barriers and stigma. This led us onto a journey that was fulfilling to say the least.
The unfortunate reality of breast cancer till date is the stigma attached to it which more often than not leads to late detection. We ran a series through the month that brought together survivors, doctors, med-tech companies and thought leaders to build a comprehensive narrative – you’re not alone. Our hashtag #BreakTheStigma ran across different mediums – social media, podcasts, blogs, expert influencer videos and a webinar. Through our content we partnered with industry leaders in the space to establish expertise and tap into existing networks and communities. One of the most known thought leaders for breast cancer in recent years has been Pinkathon – a woman’s run that has spearheaded the cause and paved its own niche in normalising breast cancer. Reema Sanghavi, Co-founder, Pinkathon came on board as a partner to help us spread information about the impact of communities on normalising this conversation. We also had Dr Kanchan Kaur from Medanta Hospital give vital information about the process for breast cancer patients.
Our efforts were culminated in an event where Roche led the partnership with leap.club, Pinkathon and Varian to facilitate a webinar on the subject. You can view the full webinar here.
However, numbers do talk and, in this case, clearly reflected our reach. We had 250K impressions on social media, with Dr Kaur’s YouTube video reaching a total of 3.3K views and 68K impressions. Moreover, the webinar saw a viewership that was unprecedented and included many into the conversation, providing crucial information about breast cancer.
The fulfilling aspect to this was that our objective led to a significant impact with SPAG Dialogue spearheading the conversation on issues of importance such as Contraception, Mental Health and Breast Cancer.