Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month March: Serviceplan and the Felix Burda Foundation give 3D animated animals a voice

For the first time, the Felix Burda Foundation is using 3D animated animals to highlight the importance of bowel cancer screening in a new awareness campaign for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March. Serviceplan Health & Life is responsible for the concept and implementation of the campaign and has already won numerous awards for creative health communication with the #DealOfALifetime and #Preventiophobia campaigns for the Felix Burda Foundation. Celebrities such as Katja Burkard, Jürgen Prochnow and Sky du Mont are lending their voices to the initiative.

Munich, 21 February 2024 — For the 23rd time, Colorectal Cancer prevention will be in the spotlight in Germany in March. Every year, 54,770 new cases of bowel cancer are diagnosed in Germany, resulting in 22,959 deaths. With prevention and early detection, colorectal cancer is usually 100% preventable or curable. To make prevention more tangible, Serviceplan Health & Life and the Felix Burda Foundation have created a new campaign spot featuring man's best friend: our own pets.

This year, the Felix Burda Foundation, together with Serviceplan, is focusing on the two options for colorectal Cancer cancer screening - stool tests and colonoscopies - to mark Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March.

At the heart of the campaign is a CGI animated film showing a beagle and a British shorthair cat discussing the benefits of the two tests for their owners. The new spot has star support: actor Jürgen Prochnow, the German voice of Sylvester Stallone, among others, voices the dog, while TV presenter Katja Burkard lends her voice to the cat. Actor Sky du Mont provides the narration. The #tierischgutewahl campaign will run from March 2024 and will include TV commercials, digital out of home, radio, online, social media and print ads.

“The Felix Burda Foundation wants people in Germany to stay healthy," explains Carsten Frederik Buchert, Head of Communications at the Munich-based foundation. "That's why we try to use new, unusual and humorous ideas to draw positive attention to a topic that many people tend to avoid.”

Charming animal ambassadors

“Cats and dogs top the list of Germany's favourite pets. They reduce stress and can even help reduce risk factors such as obesity. So why shouldn't they also motivate us to get screened for colorectal cancer?,” says Matthias Jester-Pfadt, Creative Director at Serviceplan Health & Life. "That's why we've developed a campaign to raise awareness of colorectalcancer prevention from a new perspective.”

Watch the film about the new campaign (in German) here.

In Germany, colorectal cancer is the second most common cancer in women (after breast cancer) and the third most common cancer in men (after prostate and lung cancer). One in 15 men and one in 19 women will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer during their lifetime.  Since its introduction in 2002, screening colonoscopy has been considered the ultimate in colorectal cancer prevention. Any precancerous lesions found in the bowel can be removed immediately and painlessly. Since the introduction of the immunological stool test in 2017, people have had a nearly equivalent alternative. Every year, around 560,000 people have a screening colonoscopy and around 1.9 million people use the stool test in the comfort of their own home. Since the introduction of screening colonoscopy in 2002, around 167,000 deaths from colorectal cancer have been prevented.