William P. Lauder, Elizabeth Hurley Kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month
In the 31 years since the Estée Lauder Cos. inaugurated the Breast Cancer Campaign, survival rates of women with stage one breast cancer have increased to above 90 percent.
According to William P. Lauder, the company’s executive chairman and campaign ambassador Elizabeth Hurley, it’s those improvements that motivate the campaign’s evolution and expansion.
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“Because of the investigating the Breast Cancer Research [Foundation] has done, the therapies are so much more targeted, and that’s one of the reasons survival rates have gone up. The chemo[therapy] isn’t as brutal,” Lauder said. “You might not even spend a night in the hospital anymore. Thirty years ago, this was an 18-month detour to fight for your life.”
In addition to lighting up global monuments in the campaign’s hallmark hot pink, Lauder noted that next month, the campaign will honor scientists at its annual symposium luncheon. “They’ve accomplished a great deal,” he said. “Oftentimes, they’re working in rooms in anonymity, but they’re doing amazing work and I marvel at their brilliance and insight.”
Hurley recalled the campaign’s founder, Evelyn Lauder, noting that her own humility in advancing the campaign carries through to present day. “She didn’t want to be telling her story, she never wanted to put the ego first and talk about herself and what she’d been through,” Hurley said. “This sums up the ethos of the entire campaign as it remains today in the company. It’s not about one person and it never has been, it’s always been about this wonderful, collaborative, supportive group of people.”
The connotations of breast cancer diagnoses have changed drastically since the campaign’s inception, the duo agreed.
“I’ve been speaking to quite a few young ladies and it’s strange for them to imagine a time without the pink ribbon, because they’ve grown up with them,” Hurley said, adding that when her grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer, “she was mortified and didn’t tell anybody. That wouldn’t happen today.”
That’s why awareness is a key component of the campaign, Lauder said. “Thirty years ago, awareness was just raising the subject that breast cancer is a meaningful disease that impacts more women than any other cancer,” Lauder added. “Thirty years ago, a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer was very likely to be embarrassed….That has changed.”
Business at the Estée Lauder Cos. was “OK,” Lauder said during an interview in the lobby of the Empire State Building to commemorate its lighting, but citing the company’s quiet period, couldn’t elaborate further. “The way I look at business is there are always elevators going up and elevators going down. You just hope there’s more elevators going up than down,” he continued.
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