Estée Lauder Hits Social Nets to Warn About Breast Cancer

The Estée Lauder Company is, for the first time, using social networks in a multi-faceted online effort to heighten awareness about breast cancer.

As do all the elements of the company’s new Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign (BCA), the Web components stress the importance of learning about the breast cancer and the need for early detection. The company hopes the various social network-related elements of the online effort will prompt users to spread the message.

“It’s the first time we’ve used social networks,” said Marisa Thalberg, vice president of global online marketing for Estée Lauder. She said doing so “felt like a natural extension” of the social network marketing efforts of Estée Lauder’s various brands. “Social networking and social media have been very important to several of our brands this year,” said Thalberg. She said using these viral networks to warn about breast cancer and the value of early detection “seemed like an incredible opportunity.”

The campaign is running on TotalBeauty.com, Brickfish, Slide, Yahoo Shine and the BeautyBlogNetwork as well as on most of Estée Lauder’s brand sites. Interactive marketing agency Range Online Media is also playing a supporting role in the campaign.

The company hopes the effort “will expand the BCA Campaign’s word-of-mouth message and allow individuals to share inspirational stories of survivorship.” Brickfish, which hosts sponsored art and design competitions, partnered with Estée Lauder to create a campaign called “Share a Survivor Story, Inspire the World.”

The campaign, hosted on sites including Aveda.com, Clinique.com, Origins.com, and EsteeLauder.com, encourages people to share stories, photos and videos relaying how breast cancer affected them or a person they love. Display ads promoting the effort will run on Yahoo, TotalBeauty.com, and through the DrivePM ad network. Prizes will be awarded for “iconic survivorship stories” according to Estée Lauder.

Slide, which publishes social network widgets, will use its Super Poke!, TopFriends and FunSpace applications to distribute the BCA message across MySpace, Facebook and several other social networks.

Also, TotalBeauty.com will offer an exclusive boutique of “pink” products, a sweepstakes and educational content. Purchases of the products will raise funds for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).

Another piece of the campaign is a video in which actress Elizabeth Hurley, serving as “spokesmodel” for the BCA Campaign, urges women to get annual mammograms. Exclusive interviews from inside the BCA Campaign will also be presented on Yahoo’s women-focused Shine site.