Tomar Surakkhay Tomar Alo

Background
In Bangladesh, 98% of women know about breast cancer but do not know how to perform a breast self-check. When breast cancer is diagnosed while still confined to the breast, five-year relative survival exceeds 99%. During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, City Bank saw an opportunity to close this knowledge gap through City Alo, its women’s banking segment.

We wanted women to feel confident checking their breasts for changes, to remember to do it regularly and to know where to turn if they noticed something unusual. Teaching the steps once could help someone get started. The challenge was giving her a reason to repeat the check after the awareness month ended. We looked for a reminder that could become part of a City Alo customer’s routine and a way for her to encourage the women she cared about to do the same.

The Idea
City Bank created the world’s first chequebook with an illustrated breast self-check guide. We called it the Self-Check Book. Every time a City Alo customer opened it to write a cheque, the first thing she saw was a guide to checking her breasts. We placed six illustrated steps in Bangla and English on the first page, so she could see them at a glance, follow them in private and revisit them whenever she needed. The book she used to look after her finances now reminded her to look after her health.

Bangladesh Bank’s strict rules govern chequebook design and production. For the first time ever, it granted a bank permission to modify its chequebook design, allowing City Bank to put the guide on the opening page.
The campaign website, selfcheckbook.com, gave women a place to revisit the instructions and find doctors and hospitals if they had questions after a check. Every woman who received the book was registered for a monthly SMS reminder linking directly to the site. After performing her self-check, she could post a Facebook or Instagram Story saying she had completed her “self-cheque” and inviting friends and family to do the same. A reminder that began on the first page of one woman’s chequebook could reach someone who had never opened one.
City Bank partnered with Asgar Ali Hospital and Bangladesh Cancer Aid Trust to offer free checkups and awareness sessions to every chequebook recipient and all City Bank employees. We also sent the books to six leading influencers, including a breast cancer survivor who shared her own experience. Their content drew millions of views. Social media stories, banners and two campaign videos introduced the book and explained why early detection matters. Beyond the campaign, the monthly SMS continued to bring women back to the website, with the printed guide close at hand.

RESULT
Total People Reached: 3.86M
Total Video View: 2.1M
Total Content Shared: 66K
Cheque Books Distributed: 1850+
New Accounts Opened: 1200+
Total Number of Self-Checks in Microsite till date: 42,400+
Self-Check SMS Subscription: 2,800+