New Research Suggests The Color Pink is Bad for Breast Cancer

A new research area around gender cues and its impact on awareness and fundraising efforts is just getting off the ground according to Dr. Stefano Puntoni, an Associate Professor of Marketing Management at the Rotterdam School of Management, in an interview conducted by Harvard Business Review.

“[Gender que research] is quite new…Over the past 10 years, researchers have put more effort into thinking about consumer welfare. What can we we do as researchers to help consumers make better decisions?” Dr. Puntoni said. “How can we effect change in areas like overeating and disease prevention? This is part of that. We could go more general with gender cue research, but breast cancer is such an important disease that I want to study this more on its own.”

Dr. Puntoni is talking about the findings from 10 different experiments over the past three years that suggest gender cues (such as the color pink) may be counter-productive to campaigns against women’s diseases, such as breast cancer awareness and fundraising efforts. The main insight from the research found that when women saw branding that included gender cues (like the color pink), the branding and ads were less effective. Why? Possibly because the subconscious goes into a state of denial, causing women to:

Think they are less likely be at risk
Say they are less likely to donate in reaction to a breast or ovarian cancer advertisement

The infographic below created by One to One Global highlights more of the Dr. Puntoni’s research:

Komen Responds

A spokeswomen for Susan G. Komen responded to the research in Ad Age saying that: “The research is food for thought but pink has worked well over the years,” she said. “I would say that in our experience for over 30 years now we’ve been pretty successful using pink. We’ve raised over $2 billion for research and community programs to help people with breast cancer. I don’t want to necessarily discount [the research]. It’s something to look at and consider, but our historic experience has been that we’re doing okay with the pink.”

The AdAge article continues:

Susan G. Komen, who died of breast cancer in 1980, also wore a lot of pink, the spokeswoman said, forming a strong association for her sister Nancy G. Brinker, who later founded Susan G. Komen for the Cure. “It’s not just a random color we selected,” she said. “It actually reflects the connection between the two sisters and the promise that was made.”

Though some have seen success with the color pink specifically, the research around gender cues is “something to consider” for breast cancer and beyond. Just like there’s cause fatigue, perhaps there’s been so much success—that younger generations of women don’t see the risk or the need to donate.

What do you think?

Citation:

Puntoni, S., Sweldens, S. & Tavassoli, N.T. (2011). Gender Identity Salience and Perceived Vulnerability to Breast Cancer. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(June), 413-424.

flickr credit: ILRI

6 thoughts on “New Research Suggests The Color Pink is Bad for Breast Cancer”

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /home2/flyfouch/public_html/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /home2/flyfouch/public_html/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Nikko August 28, 2011 at 11:46 pm

If its bad for breast cancer, then its good for the women. There are a lot of organizations helping breast cancer victims, mostly I see of is the yellow color banners and logos. I think they should try using the pink and try if it can do something. Great post here.

Andrea Learned August 29, 2011 at 4:08 pm

As someone who has studied the use of “for women” cues, like pink, in marketing to women (I’m the co-author of the book, Don’t Think Pink) – I agree that it is worth further study. While pink may have now been well-established as a brand color for the Susan G. Komen Foundation… it doesn’t need to be the code for every other cause about which you want women to potentially take note. And, taking a step back, why are certain causes either “for women” or not? Breast cancer, as a recent campaign puts it – affects everyone. The hope is that we get beyond using color or labels like “for women” or “women’s this or that” for causes that are really universally human issues/concerns. If we use the right stories, we shouldn’t need a symbolic color to engage the audience anyway… Very interesting research – I look forward to more.

Alex Post authorAugust 29, 2011 at 4:22 pm

Hi Nikko and Andrea–Thanks for your comments!

Andrea–You mean one size doesn’t fit all? I completely agree and am honored to have a real expert on the topic join in the discussion! I also appreciate you advocating for us to get beyond colors and labels–like those two things alone will solve everything, right? But that gets into a bigger discussion…

Related however, is that in the HBR article, Dr. Puntoni does offer the suggestion (and cites some research findings to support) that perhaps organizations would be MORE effective if they did choose more neutral-based colors and did present the stories and information under a more universal framework.

#Ron September 1, 2011 at 7:48 am

I actually never knew why pink was the colour for breast cancer awareness. It wasn’t until I read this article that I heard about a connection between Komen and the colour pink.

Oddly enough, however, even after about a half hour of perusing the page, I found nothing on their website about this connection. There seems to be only one picture of Susan, and she isn’t wearing pink in it.

I applaud the foundation for their invaluable work and service, and they have had great success certainly worth celebrating. They’ve certainly built a strong emotional connection between their cause and their colour, which is extremely important and even more difficult.

I can understand reluctance to change the colour on account of their long-standing reputation. Nonetheless, I think they are facing a number of opportunities: don’t outright change your representative colour, but test new colour campaigns to reach a broader demographic; or give your supporters a reminder about why breast cancer awareness is pink.

@HashTagRon

BMC September 1, 2011 at 1:18 pm

I agree with the comments that certain colors don’t need to include or exclude particular demographics when the disease affects everyone. Ultimately, the definition of these colors and their associations are provided to us by the organizations that create them. If something is getting lost in the translation and it’s having a negative effect, then perhaps it is time to change tactics?

fafa July 10, 2012 at 3:59 pm

I think pink is a color which is adored by many young girls and teens. The word cancer awareness is not as positive as Cancer free or cancer cure, so when you associate a color to a reminder of something sad and suffering such as cancer, the color pink becomes associated with the intense feelings that come to our subconcious when we think about the cancer and what it may have done to us and our family. If the campaign continues to associate themselves with the color pink and everyone else makes pink products to incrfease the promotion of teh words” CANCER awareness” then it will be instilled heavily into our subconcious minds. Girls may start looking at the color pink and everytime they do, they see the word cancer next too it, creating a sad and hopeless feeling. So, I think subliminally its not the best choice in promoting something in a positive way. I wonder if this association with pink has caused any increase in cancer amongst young girls and women who love pink. Our subconcious minds are very intelligent and they pick up on everything and sometimes we can pick up unrelated associations such as this instance (color and disease) and it will become a reality.

Comments are closed.

SocialButterfly

Exploring the Art + Science of Social Change.

6 thoughts on “New Research Suggests The Color Pink is Bad for Breast Cancer”