Cancer Chicks launches ‘The Best Worst Club’ that you’ll ever hate to join via The General Store

The General Store has partnered with Cancer Chicks, a charity supporting young women aged 18-35, to launch The Best Worst Club, a new brand platform built to connect young women living with cancer or severe chronic illness to the peer support they desperately need but too rarely find.

The campaign was developed in response to a critical challenge. While Australia sees more than 10,000 women under 35 diagnosed with cancer or chronic illness each year, many of these young women face not just treatment, but isolation. Friends don’t know what to say, family says the wrong thing, and traditional support can feel awkward, generic or absent.

Built on the insight that the only people who truly know what to say are the ones who’ve been through it, the platform positions Cancer Chicks as the trusted community supporting every member to navigate their journey with confidence and hope.

At the heart of the platform is The Best Worst Club, an integrated campaign built around a simple, devastating truth. Nobody wants to be eligible to join Cancer Chicks, but once they do, they discover it’s the best club they’ll ever hate to belong to. Designed using tension and emotional contrast, the construct is a flexible way to educate audiences on everything they need to know, from peer support and community events, to practical programs and advocacy.

Leading the campaign is a 60 second hero film directed by Jordan Watton from Scoundrel. Shot with intimacy and rawness, the piece celebrates the warmth, camaraderie and resilience of Australia’s young women with cancer, introducing the club to the community, from the community. Alongside the film is a new visual identity inspired by the idea of an exclusive club, reflecting how knowledge, care and support ripple from person to person throughout the community.

Says Sophie Lander, Managing Director, The General Store: “When you’re a young woman with cancer, most people simply don’t know how to show up for you, so we built this campaign around the one insight that mattered most, that the only people who truly get it are the ones who have lived it, which is exactly what makes Cancer Chicks so powerful and exactly what we wanted the Best Worst Club to prove to every young woman who feels alone in this fight.”

Says Sharon Edmondston, Executive Creative Director, The General Store: “We didn’t want to make another charity ad. We needed to tell the truth of this incredible support network of women. Cancer Chicks is a place where these women can say whatever they want, or nothing at all, and still feel like themselves. The Best Worst Club is aspirational, stylish and full of life, right up until the truth lands. That tension is what makes it impossible to ignore.”

Says Michele Molnar, Founder & Director, Cancer Chicks: “This campaign has truly captured the essence of who we are, and our Cancer Chicks exactly as they are, raw, human, vulnerable, resilient and joyful, still living life despite everything they face, and in launching the ‘Best Worst Club’ with such honesty, love and respect, they’ve made our community feel truly seen, special and heard in a way we’ll never take for granted.”

Cancer Chicks
Founder & Director: Michele Molnar
Chief Operations Director: Kerri Filler
Board Member: Kerri Chow

Creative agency: The General Store
Managing Director: Sophie Lander
Strategy Planners: Craig McLeod, Angelica Martin, Karys Kennedy
ECD: Sharon Edmondston
Creatives: Hannah Lawson, Jessica Beal, Cassandra Wait-Hughes, Stuart Tobin, Mark Scholler
Group Client & Operations Director: Sara Stevenson
Account Director: Sascha Jacobs
Account Manager: Adam Roberts
Design: Reece Lawson, Charlie Greenslade

Production company: Scoundrel
Director: Jordan Watton
DOP: Don Buppapirak ACS
Executive Producer: Adrian Shapiro
Producer: Olivia Sawyer
VO: Tessa de Josselin
Photographer: Juliet Taylor
Production company: Pool Collective
Executive Producer: Caitlin Perz
Producer: Zoe Izzard
BTS: Photographer/Director: Jeremy Shaw

Arc
Editor: Liam James
Colourist: Ethan Thomas

Rumble
Composer: Jeremy Richmond
Sound Design/Mix: Tone Aston

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