A Message from Marisa: For those of you who have been with us for while (and THANK you for that), you know we do not usually feature our own “executive” lives within our weekly Momorandums. However, this time of year warrants a worthy exception, as the world shines a pink light on one of the most prevalent diseases to effect women worldwide – one which is also 98% treatable if detected early: Breast Cancer. In my corporate life leading digital marketing for The Estée Lauder Companies, I am fortunate to work for a company who has made Breast Cancer Awareness its driving philanthropic cause, beginning with the indomitable Evelyn Lauder’s co-creation of the pink ribbon (yes, that was her) and founding of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 1992. While there are a lot of terrific ways to ‘think pink’ this October, allow me to share this special campaign my team created…
Take the ‘BCA Pledge’
Inspired by this signature campaign visual and its idea that we all need to “Connect. Communicate. Conquer Breast Cancer… One Woman at a Time,” we were struck by the idea that this image could be also interpreted as symbolic of a woman taking a pledge – a pledge to be more aware of and empowered in her own breast health.
This became the basis for The BCA Pledge Campaign – where we are inviting women around the world (and men, for that matter) to make their own simple text pledge of awareness, (i.e. “I pledge to perform a monthly breast self exam”) and to share it, with even just one more person.
To lend further inspiration, we enlisted 11 wonderful, influential bloggers to replicate this pose, including Sharon Couto, Jane Couto and Audrey McClelland of Mom Generations, Mediaite blogger Rachel Sklar, Amanda Steinberg of Daily Worth (a past Executive Moms’ feature) and our token guy, the spirited Peter Shankman.
You can participate in the pledge campaign across a range of web destinations worldwide, including on Tumblr (bcapledge.org). The easiest: visit the BCA Pledge page on Facebook, “Like” the page, and then click on the ‘Take a Pledge’ tab, to take your own. If you happen to spend time on Twitter, especially weeknights, you’ve likely come across the popular “Girls Night Out” Twitter parties; next Monday evening, October 18th, “GNO” is going pink – so please join the conversation by simply signing into Twitter and following the hashtags: #BCAPledge and #GNO.
How nice it would be if our collective pledge could be to make Breast Cancer – ALL cancer – a thing of the past.
If Laughter is the Best Medicine…
Through such weighty issues it helps to have the grace to laugh and dance on… and as such there seemed a fitting synergy to share that one of our favorite forms of family fare is back: The Big Apple Circus, and this year “Dance On!” happens to be the theme. Celebrating its 33rd year under its intimate, single ring Big Top, we have been longstanding fans of this not-for-profit performing arts institution that delivers the wonder of classical circus, and the 2010 production entails an international assemblage, including monocyclists and lasso twirlers from China, Mongolian contortionists, miniature horses and an Ethiopian juggler.
Starting October 21st at Lincoln Center in New York City, Executive Moms can save up to $25 per ticket: visit bigapplecircus.org/mommy11LC.aspx and submit the code MOMMY11 in the Promotional Codes box in the lower left of the page to take advantage.