Advertising Week New York 2026: The Partnerships Powering Breast Cancer Awareness

For brands, raising awareness is often the beginning of a campaign. In public health, it is only the beginning of the work. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, leaders from the beauty industry and breast cancer research community came together to discuss how sustained partnerships can advance a cause while strengthening employee engagement and brand trust.

At Advertising Week New York’s session, “Marketing That Saves Lives: Applying Brand Strategy to Public Health,” leaders from The Estée Lauder Companies, Ulta Beauty and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) explored what happens when companies put their relationships, employees and marketing infrastructure behind a cause and stay committed long enough to help advance it.

Moderated by Jenny Fine, executive editor of beauty at WWD, the session brought together BCRF President and CEO Donna McKay, Estée Lauder Companies board chair William Lauder, Ulta Beauty President and CEO Kecia Steelman, and BCRF researcher Dr. Lisa Newman to discuss how brand strategy can move beyond awareness to support education, research funding and action. Their discussion offered a clear lesson for communications leaders: Purpose becomes credible through sustained participation, not simply through visibility.

The panel’s discussion began with the stigma that once surrounded breast cancer. When women felt embarrassed or uncomfortable discussing a diagnosis, making the disease visible was itself an important intervention. William Lauder recounted how his mother, Evelyn H. Lauder, helped change that conversation by bringing breast cancer awareness into the places where women already shopped. The Estée Lauder Companies launched its Breast Cancer Campaign in 1992, and Evelyn Lauder co-created the pink ribbon before founding BCRF in 1993.

Distributing ribbons at department store beauty counters turned a familiar consumer setting into a place for connection and conversation. The company’s reach became more than a distribution network for products; it became a way to bring a difficult subject into public view. That commitment has continued for more than three decades, supporting breast cancer research, education and medical services. The ribbon provided a recognizable symbol, but the ongoing commitment gave that symbol substance.

One of the session’s strongest themes was the role employees play in making corporate social responsibility meaningful. The panel described how supporting breast cancer research gave employees a reason to feel proud of their company beyond what it sold. A shared cause connected daily work to a larger purpose.

Ulta Beauty’s long-standing partnership with BCRF illustrated how that connection can become action. Its October fundraising program gives customers the opportunity to donate at store registers. But Steelman emphasized that the people behind these efforts are just as important. Human connections formed through associates speaking with guests, colleagues sharing personal experiences and conversations in Ulta stores have made an intimidating subject more approachable. Employee engagement and buy-in are crucial to corporate social responsibility campaigns and can determine whether an effort feels genuine.

Authenticity, in this context, comes from people understanding the cause, seeing its connection to their organization and having a meaningful role in supporting it.

The conversation also pushed beyond fundraising and early awareness to consider what happens after a diagnosis. Steelman emphasized that breast cancer can change a person’s life in ways that do not end when treatment does. Ulta Beauty’s support for survivorship research reflects that broader understanding of impact. The company identifies BCRF-supported survivorship research as part of its commitment to enhancing women’s well-being throughout their breast cancer journeys.

That perspective creates a different communications challenge. A public health campaign must do more than encourage concern at a single moment. It must acknowledge the continuing experiences of people affected by the disease.

The session also explored how survivorship can become advocacy. Personal experience can give people both a reason to participate and a powerful way to help others understand why research matters. For brands, those stories require care. Their value lies in making the cause and progress more understandable. The panel connected sustained funding with scientific progress, noting that researchers have developed a more nuanced understanding of breast cancer and treatments tailored to different forms of the disease.

That evolving understanding also shapes where new research investment goes, including efforts to better understand breast cancer in younger women and improve approaches to prevention, early detection and treatment.

For communications teams, this is an opportunity to explain the relationship between contribution and consequence: what funding supports, which questions researchers are investigating and why those questions matter. The panel cautioned that progress is not experienced equally. Its discussion of socioeconomic, social, cultural and genetic differences underscored the importance of telling a story that recognizes both advances and unresolved needs.

Optimism can motivate participation. Transparency gives that optimism credibility.

The session’s advice for companies considering a cause partnership was straightforward: Begin with a genuine connection to the organization’s values, employees and customers. Then treat the relationship as work to be sustained, not simply as a name to place beside a logo.

For brands looking to leverage corporate social responsibility campaigns, the commitment must be year-round. For Ulta Beauty and The Estée Lauder Companies, finding cures and improving health outcomes are goals that extend well beyond Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Their ambition is to continue supporting the cause until the need for that support no longer exists. As William Lauder explained, when his mother founded BCRF, her ultimate goal was to put the organization out of business by fulfilling its mission and making its work no longer necessary.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month continues, communications professionals can learn from the progress made through these partnerships. The opportunity to do good is not simply about making a cause more recognizable. It is about rallying people, helping them understand why their participation matters and building partnerships capable of driving real change while instilling a sense of pride in a brand, its employees and its stakeholders.