Cause Marketing Breast Cancer Wear

Anytime a movie plays a hospital scene for laughs, one of the most reliable sight gags is those damnable hospital gowns they give you to wear. They’re too small, too short, ridiculously-cut, and for years they had that slit up the back that seemed calculated to mock a patient’s dignity.

But what if you have breast cancer and require periodic trips to the treatment center for chemo or radiation, breast exams, ultrasounds, MRIs, and the like. You can wear your street clothes in, but they aren’t at all functional for MRIs or radiation. And the functional hospital gowns, called ‘Johnnie robes,’ provided by hospitals and treatment facilities are almost dehumanizing.

Enter Jillies.com, which offers a kind of tunic to wear both into and during breast cancer treatments called the 'Playful Garment.' All cotton, permanent press, washable, Jillies come with a drawstring carryall that you can use to carry personal belongings around during treatments.

When your purchase Jillies, a portion of the proceeds goes to the Jillies Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity whose mission is to, “support programs that specifically promote patient wellbeing.”

Jillies.com aims to be, but is not yet a place for 220,000 women who are diagnosed with breast cancer every year “to find answers to all of the (non-medical) questions you may not feel comfortable asking your doctor.”

Nice.

I want to encourage enterprises like Jillies, so on the chance that they read this I have two suggestions:

Sponsors always have their own reasons for being fuzzy about the donation amount, but it almost never serves a good purpose.

Likewise the mission of the Jillies Foundation could certainly be more specific. Supporters rally better to a cause that they understand and whose mission can be plainly stated rather than to one that is vague and indistinct.