Published on 24 October 2025
A successful Cancer Alliance awareness campaign that promoted sparking conversations about the disease has won two marketing awards.
The Two Minutes of Chat and an Early Screening campaign ran between May and July 2025 and featured the stars of the cult BBC sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. It ran across Halton, where the comedy series was set.
Two Pints actors Ralf Little and Will Mellor starred in videos and other publicity material for the campaign that also featured local people talking about cancer screening and reducing the fear of cancer.
At the Prolific North Marketing Awards on 23rd October, the campaign – created by digital marketing agency Vivid Everywhere – scooped awards for Best Not-For-Profit Campaign (Purpose Driven) and Best Health Campaign.
Entries to the awards were scored against criteria including creativity, effectiveness, innovation, and impact.
The campaign had distinctive branding, outdoor advertising, social media presence and support from local community groups across the borough, with the message being seen by 58% of people in Halton, and an estimated 13 to 25% of people gained increased knowledge of what is involved with the NHS cancer screening programmes.
Eluned Hughes, CMCA’s Campaigns Development Manager, said: “Halton was an area of our region that had a low uptake of cancer screening, so this was a really effective campaign to get people talking about how important checks are – and what to look out for with cancer symptoms.
“The people of Halton are rightly proud of being the place where Two Pints of Lager was set and took the campaign to their hearts, with more than 400,000 views of the videos and the campaign reaching more than 900,000 people across the region.
“I would like to thank Vivid Everywhere for the creative way they helped us to reach more people with NHS cancer awareness and all the people in Halton who helped us to spread the message.”
Tracey Wright, Deputy Director at CMCA, said: “This was the Cancer Alliance’s first integrated awareness campaign in our work to increase the early detection of cancer, and it was an enormous success. We are delighted to win these awards which are testament to the hard work and expertise of our campaigns team and our agency partners, Vivid Everywhere.
“Two Minutes of Chat was a new way of the NHS to engage with people in a community than may not have been receptive to our messaging before. We hope it has changed behaviour, and will increase screening rates and check-ups so cancer is detected earlier when it is easier to treat – and ultimately save lives.”