The Great Gap

As Richard Strydom always likes to say: “Assumptions is the mother of all F Hash Star K ups”. Here’s a true tale of the Great Gap between assumptions made, and reality after 'just asking'.

The mission: making young people aware of testicular and breast cancer.

Being young people ourselves we were s_hash_star_t scared of being tested for breast cancer. We heard of The Mammogram- being naked and pressed like beef patties, which did not seem pleasant, at all. We knew we had overcome our fear in order to promote the it in a way that would make other young people do the awkward now-take-off-your-clothes tests.

Nurse: You know your's the best. Do it yourself first."

Turns out you don’t get a mammogram on the first date – of appointment. The nurse/doctor first feels for bumps or lumps (same thing for testicular cancer tests).  We came, we conquered and we were told to test ourselves, the nurse: "you know your's the best, do it yourself first.

Assumption 1: You’ll just have to get over the embarrassment and go to a clinic/ doctor

Insight 1: You don’t have to get over it, you can just Google it: how to do a breast/testicular cancer self test.

Insight 1.2: We clearly know nothing.

Even though we fit the profile of our target market, we’re still designers. We like pretty pictures, quirky type design and beautiful gradients. Normal people don’t. So we identified the bars where we’d find Vredefest goers, and ended up taking a hubbly and a voice recorder to two local Indie/ Rock/ Metal type bars. Here are some more shocker insights:

Assumption 2

We might not have a clue, but they should know about the self-test.

Insight 2

The have no clue either. “I haven’t thought about testicular cancer until now”. Conclusion: nobody knows anything.

Assumption 3

If they know they’d test themselves for sure.

Insight 3

They’re not sure how. They think it’s a once off test. So did we.

Assumption 4

Yeah, we make them scan cool qr codes and make a Facebook page!

Insight 4

It’s called spam, and people in South Africa don’t eat it, not even the young ones, not even on Facebook. 

Assumption 5

They probably don't want to hear about cancer and the self test, so we'l have to use gimmicks.

Insight 5

"Just tell us like it is. Just be down to the point".

I repeat: “Assumptions is the mother of all F Hash Star K ups”