After over a decade, Breast Cancer Awareness Month has become one of the most recognized health campaigns and as a business it can be very important to be a part of it. Every October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) is your chance to show customers that you have an interest in their wellbeing. You may be concerned about finding an appropriate way to market around disease awareness, but BCAM has had a promotional side to it from the very beginning, and you will have very little difficulty finding something tasteful to contribute.

Breast Cancer Awareness has been a big deal in most first world countries for many years (just in case you didn’t notice). The Race for the Cure, started in Texas around 1983, has become an international event that sees millions of participants every year. Every October for over a decade has been labeled Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the United States. The pink ribbon has become a widely recognized symbol for the fight against the disease, and had become popular when several other ribbons became popular, like red ribbons for AIDS awareness, handed out as early as 1991.

Do a quick search through a promotional product company’s website for "pink ribbon" to find hundreds of items, nearly all of them related to breast cancer awareness. As usual, make sure you narrow down your hunt to items that are appropriate to your specific business. There’s enough of a variety of promotional breast cancer awareness products that you should be able to find one with very little trouble. Don’t forget that context is important, too! Really, every important promotional product criteria still applies to an Awareness product, so treat it like you would any other promotional item.

It doesn’t just have to have a pink ribbon on it to make it a Breast Cancer Awareness product. Anything pink is appropriate for the month! Customize a promotional product pink with an awareness message or choose an item with a message already on it. A lot of events such as walkathons and golf tournaments actually take place in September. These events are perfect for branding your company or cause. Most events are always looking for sponsorship and with that usually comes the opportunity to hand out some marketing merchandise so take advantage of it and place your orders well in advance. Mid August is a good time to order your product so any awareness events taking place over the next two months you are prepared to participate in and hand out promotional items.

Be aware that Breast Cancer Awareness Month has been accused of being too corporate in the past, as some of the leaders in making BCMA what it is today are big pharmaceutical companies. It might be tempting to try to avoid any Awareness promotions because of this, but if you use a little common sense your promotional items will let your company express genuine interest in fighting breast cancer without looking greedy in the process. If you can manage good marketing practices in other circumstances, BCMA won’t give you any problems and your customers and clients will know you care.