L’Oreal skincare brand La Roche-Posay has launched a new Skinchecker campaign to raise awareness of skin cancer globally.

Having already launched in Australia and Latin America in January, the campaign is now being launched in Europe and the company believes that it can make a real difference to the current rates of skin cancer diagnosis by taking a slightly different approach to that of campaigns before it.

Rather than adopting the usual “scare tactics” of cancer adverts, the campaign draws on Ipsos research which discovered that 73% of people questioned about skin cancer said that they cared more about the health of their loved one than their own. With this in mind, L’Oreal is urging people to take a “proactive” look at their family members and friends to check for signs of skin cancer. A YouTube video released by the firm features two Dalmations examining each other’s spots in an effort to encourage people to do so in the same way.

Yannick Raynaud, Head of L’Oréal’s Active Cosmetics Division, told marketing website The Drum: “If you look at awareness campaigns in the industry for many years most of them have taken an alarmist and scare tactic approach which might not be resonating strongly with consumers because they don’t want to be in the situation of facing almost certain death.

“[With our campaign] you finish the video and you feel happy. You have a smile on your face and this is something that you don’t normally have with a skin cancer campaign.”

Fiona Tinsley, Solicitor at Russell Worth said: “This is a brilliant campaign which here at Russell Worth we fully support in the hope that these new tactics will raise much-needed awareness of skin cancer and its tell-tale signs.

“At Russell Worth we help many victims of skin cancer who have developed the disease as a result of faulty or unregulated sunbeds, which are increasing in popularity all the time and are a well-known trigger of skin cancer.”

View the video now by clicking here.