Be Body Aware Partnership

Client: NHS England and Morrisons

For the NHS to achieve their ambition to increase the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 from around 50% to 75% by 2028, they need to encourage people to be familiar with their bodies and adopt a mindset of ‘knowing what’s normal for you’. This will encourage people to spot changes early and seek advice from a health professional. Our activity was a first of its kind creative collaboration between the NHS and Morrisons. Together we added breast and testicular cancer awareness messaging to underwear care labels. Cancer messaging from the NHS features on the care labels and the outer packaging of Nutmeg crop-top bras and boxer shorts to prompt people to check themselves for changes to their body and to contact their GP practice if they notice any changes. The advice and messaging is tailored to the product. Crop-top bras reference the most common symptoms of breast cancer and men’s boxer shorts reference testicular cancer symptoms. This is a simple solution which connects with people in the very moment they are getting dressed. Making body awareness easy, normal, and regular. Care labels in clothing are traditionally reserved for garment instructions, so this is a genuinely powerful new way to deliver a potentially lifesaving prompt in the right place at the right time. Since launch nearly 400,000 pairs of Nutmeg branded boxer shorts and crop-top bras carrying the NHS care labelling have been sold across 240 Morrison’s stores.