The Breast Cancer Foundation (BCF) has apologised for "causing any confusion or offence" over a series of advertisement messages it had put up to raise awareness about breast cancer.

The apology was made in a comment on a Facebook post by actress Pam Oei, after she put up a message calling out the advertisements for being confusing.

The advertisements included slogans such as, "For your breasts go up, down, in, out and all around," and "Heading out saves breasts", juxtaposed with messages regarding Covid-19 safety.

Another advertisement put up in public toilets also showed a similar type of aesthetic with the message, "Palm to palm. Between fingers. And also, all around your breasts."

BCF: Ads were an attempt to raise awareness

In its apology, BCF explained that its intention was to raise awareness about the importance of having a mammogram amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

BCF added that as many women had postponed their mammograms as a result of the Circuit Breaker and stay-home advisories, the juxtaposition of Covid-19 and mammogram/ breast self-examination advice was meant to "intrigue people to read on and scan our QR code (located within the same media panel) to know more".

Acknowledging Oei's feedback, it added:

"That said, we sincerely apologise for causing any confusion or offence to anyone. We’ll definitely take all your feedback into consideration for future campaigns. It’s always challenging to talk about breasts, or breast cancer awareness for that matter. But we welcome the challenge and will keep doing our best to spread this important life-saving message!"

Here is the comment in full:

Oei: Messages are garbled and grammatically incorrect

Oei responded to BCF by thanking the foundation for their work and highlighting how she understood the importance of mammograms given that her own mother had passed away from the disease in 1999, at the age of 54.

She added:

"And I think the work that BCF does is important and life-saving indeed. All the more your messaging to the public to bring awareness to breast cancer should be clear and incisive."

Adding that the message in the advertisements were "garbled", she said:

"It was not clear at all what it was trying to say and when people are confused and irritated (not intrigued) by an ad, they are not going to scan the QR code to know more (maybe also you can add a line somewhere to scan the QR code for more info). Also, realistically and grammatically, one cannot go IN and OUT of a breast during BSE, as pointed out by my best friend."

Oei then concluded by thanking the foundation for taking the feedback into consideration.

Here is her comment in full:

Totally unrelated but follow and listen to our podcast here

Top image photos by Pam Oei and Tanya Ong