• by Fern Siegel , December 8, 2022

Firefighters take care of others. But they don't always take care of themselves.

That's the premise behind the "Response Time Matters" campaign, alerting firefighters at a higher risk of cancer, given occupational exposures, to be aware of their health.

Denver creative agency Cactus, along with the advocacy group DetecTother, fashioned a campaign to save lives. Three spots, "Cough," "Exhausted" and "Mole" underscore the importance of paying attention to warning signs.

The campaign features Jason Patton, fireman/social influencer of YouTube's "Fire Department Chronicles." He confronts first-responders in a humorous way with a series tagline: “Just like a fire, response time to cancer matters.”

Andy Bartosch, associate creative director at Cactus, says: "We leveraged Patton to build a multimedia campaign that starts with a shareable video, spreads across firefighters' social channels and digital spaces, and lands directly in the firehouse. There, we can get them talking about and checking in with their bodies via collateral that teaches them how to check for health changes that could be indicative of cancer."

The work is also running on Detectogether social channels, such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

The campaign also includes firehouse products, such as mugs and posters posted, to remind employees to perform specific self-checks.

"For the past five years, our in-person training has been helping to save their lives by teaching them how to detect cancer early," said Tricia Laursen, president, of DetecTogether. "We worked with Cactus to discover a new and authentic way to more quickly connect with and inspire firefighters to put our 3 Steps Detect road map to early-cancer detection into action."

This summer, Cactus was named lead agency partner for Plano, a fishing-hunting supply company, and AOR for Commonwealth Care Alliance. Client work includes the Colorado Lottery, Edward-Elmhurst Health and You at College.