Over recent years there has been a decrease in the percentage of eligible individuals attending their cervical screening. This is despite the fact that screening prevents 70% of cervical cancer deaths.

Much of the reluctancy to attend the Smear comes down to misinformation and fear surrounding the experience. To ‘Remove Fear from the Smear’ Ann Summers has teamed up with RAPP UK to create a campaign designed to destigmatise cervical smear tests and amplify the need for women to attend cervical screening for their ongoing health. 

The Remove Fear from the Smear campaign aims to counter anxiety associated with cervical screening by promoting what appears to be a compact new ‘life saving’ sex toy. The campaign teases a new product that customers and followers are led to believe is available for purchase in the form of a new sex toy from the brand. The video pans out for the big reveal where the audience learn that the new ‘toy’ is in fact a speculum – The Life-Saving One. 

The speculum is the instrument used during cervical smear tests and is used to help a lot more than just people's sex lives. If everyone attended Smear tests regularly 83% of deaths could be prevented each year. 

“Women aged between 25-29 are the least likely to attend their cervical smear test and also Ann Summer’s core customer base – making this partnership incredibly powerful. By providing this new and super creative lens for women to think about the process of cervical screening, we hope they will see there really is no need to ‘fear the smear’. The campaign is designed to be bold and open about women’s health and encourage those who would have been reluctant, to get into the habit of regular screening – which we know helps to save lives.” explained Afua Basoah, Head of Health and Social Impact at RAPP UK.

As a brand unafraid to talk about sex and women’s pleasure more readily than most, Ann Summers is well-positioned to encourage women to come together and break down stigmas around women's health. With women willing to walk into stores and discuss sex toys or speak openly about their pleasure, the brand hopes to extend this openness to sharing stories around cervical screenings.

The awareness campaign aims to bring talk about cervical screenings outside of the usual clinical, daunting environment and to remove some of the fear associated with it. Having already worked to break down stigmas around women’s pleasure the brand is able to use its bold nature to extend such conversations to other taboos. Removing such taboos when it comes to women's health can be life or death.