ROLE

ACD/Writer

AGENCY

Small Army

VIBES

Personal Catharsis

TEAM

ACD/Writer: Jess Tardy

ACD/AD: Joe Krikava

AD: Matt St. Pierre

CW: Evangeline Condakes

ECD: Sam Pitino

Producer: Sylvain Lucarelli

CAPABILITIES

Empathy-driven UX

Multi-channel Campaign

Creative Direction & Copy

Audio Production & Voiceover

Lemons Into Lemonade-ing

Q: How do you get women to schedule mammograms they dread?

A: Make the machine their new bestie.

Boston Medical Center needed to increase mammography appointments among women who consistently delayed or avoided scheduling—a user experience challenge rooted in deep anxiety, medical trauma, and complex relationships with healthcare systems.

As a recent breast cancer survivor fresh from treatment, I brought some pretty intensely lived-in user research to the content strategy. Working with Small Army’s creative team, we identified that traditional medical messaging increased rather than reduced patient anxiety, creating barriers instead of pathways to care. I knew from experience that the only thing scarier than a mammogram would be never showing up for one.

Our insight was that women needed emotional permission and psychological safety before they could take action. Rather than clinical language that reinforced medical trauma, we personified the mammogram machine as an awkward but caring friend—basically your breast’s new bestie—reframing the entire experience through humor and empathy.

The campaign featured messaging like “shmammograms” instead of mammograms, transit ads that acknowledged the discomfort while emphasizing self-care, and video content where the machine introduced itself as a supportive presence rather than a threatening medical procedure. I also created and produced the radio and Spotify ads, and became the literal voice of the mammogram machine—talk about catharsis. This approach transformed a fear-based healthcare interaction into a relationship-based experience, significantly increasing appointment bookings and earning industry recognition for humanizing medical communication.

P.S. Cancer can kick rocks. I’m fine now.