Think pink! It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month – which means a chance to support our life-changing, boob-checking Tickled Pink campaign. Asda charity lead Jo Warner has the feels... INTERVIEW RACHAEL STILES PHOTOGRAPHS JO DENISON
What is Tickled Pink all about? It is a partnership between Asda and two breast cancer charities, CoppaFeel! and Breast Cancer Now. It was created in 1996, when a colleague lobbied the business to get behind supporting breast cancer as an issue. Back then, around 37,000 women a year were diagnosed with breast cancer. That has risen to 55,000 a year in 2022. We all need to be talking about it.
have millions of customers shopping with us each week, so we use our stores and our products for visibility and messaging – on our changing room mirrors, lingerie labels, period products, pharmacy bags and receipts. You may have seen Asda home delivery vans with ‘breast check’ messages. They’re disruptive and very pink. Watch out for our brand-new awareness campaign, The Real Self Checkout, in store during October.
What does Tickled Pink actually do? Through the generosity of our customers and colleagues we have raised £77m to date, and we want to raise £100m by 2026. We focus on awareness-raising, not just on breast cancer, but how everyone should get to know their boobs and pecs. If they notice something that’s unusual for them, they should see a GP as soon as possible. Our research has found that 30% of our customers have never checked themselves. But 40% do it regularly, so that’s positive. We
Why is this so close to your heart? I lead all of Asda’s charity partnerships – it’s the best job! But I also have had my own experience of breast cancer. My two sisters have had it too. We were all in our twenties – there’s a strong family history – so it is very important to me and I’ve seen first-hand the benefit of an early diagnosis. I get to work with an amazing team to come up with engaging, disruptive campaigns, so that more people know checking is something that should be part of their routine, and could save their life.
90 | ASDA MAGAZINE | OCTOBER 2022
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