In Brazil, a project called Tatuador Consciente has been teaching tattoo artists how to detect signs of melanoma and other skin cancers while they’re inking.
Brazil is famed for its beaches, but days spent soaking up the sun’s rays can carry serious risks for Brazilian beachgoers if they don’t use the necessary protection. There are 140,000 new cases of skin cancer in Brazil every year, and it’s the most common cancer for the country – more than breast and prostate cancer combined. What’s more, young people in particular believe that skin cancer checks are more for the elderly. In order to get through to the youthful demographic, a project called Tatuador Consciente (which translates as Conscious Tattoo) has taught tattoo artists how to detect signs of melanoma and other skin cancers while they’re at work.
Initiated by Ogilvy Brasil in 2014 for ‘The Sunscreen Brand for the Youth’ Sol de Janeiro, the project initially trained up 200 certified tattoo artists from across Brazil with help from the A C Camargo Cancer Center. The students were taught how to identify marks on the skin that can be signs of the presence of skin cancer or of potential risk from harmful UV rays. One customer, Hanna Martins, said, ‘It was my tattoo artist who pointed out that a mole I had appeared irregular. We later discovered that it was a mole that could turn into skin cancer.’
The idea was that the tattooists, while inking their customer, would also be able to give them a quick check that could help them catch cancer early — the kind of check that would usually require a trip to a specialist dermatologist. The initiative was also available online, where over 250 further artists completed their diploma at no cost, and the website enabled young people to find a qualified tattoo artist near them.
As a result of the project, some customers were advised against getting tattoos over specific moles which needed to be left exposed for monitoring, or were encouraged to take extra care if they had fair skin. Some customers were even made aware of early signs of skin cancer thanks to the course. With 450 trained tattoo artists seeing an average of six clients a day, there were approximately 18,900 people being checked for cancer every week as a result of the initiative.
Of course, Tatuador Consciente is not the first innovation to use tattooing to help cancer patients, and we’ve already seen the P.INK campaign offer women with breast cancer scars some creative ink ideas to cover them up.
Unfortunately, the Tatuador Consciente website has now been taken down, and this was always designed as an awareness campaign rather than a long-term initiative. But there’s plenty of scope for this idea, and ideas like it, to be established on a more permanent basis.
__TAKEAWAYS
Company name: Sol de Janeiro
Contact: www.ogilvy.com.br/#!/contato
Innovation name: Tatuador Consciente
Country: Brazil
Industries: Beauty & cosmetics / Education / Health & wellbeing / Non-profit & social cause