1678 When Crime Does Pay: How a Stolen Colon Went Viral and Raised Global Screening Awareness

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: On the night of October 19, 2018, a shipping container containing a 10' × 12' inflatable colon was stolen out of the back of a truck in suburban Kansas City, MO. The night of the caper, the colon was loaded and prepared to attend a breast cancer awareness walk on Saturday morning, ready to educate the people in attendance about colorectal cancer and the importance of screening. What would unfold over the next 10 days can only be described as the most unintentional global colorectal cancer awareness campaign ever. The message of the importance of screening would reach more than the 100s of people in attendance at that one event, it would reach 100s of millions of people. CASE DESCRIPTION/METHODS: Using traditional, online, and social media tracking tools the staff at the Colon Cancer Coalition, the owners of this now famous colon, were able to track the number of stories and the number of people who were exposed to this important health message. Throughout the 10 days that this visual and attention-grabbing educational tool was missing and in the immediate aftermath of its recovery on October 29, online media stories featuring the “stolen colon” totaled 962, reaching a potential 955,302,697 people. The #stolencolon hashtag on social media was shared over 6,500 times, resulting in over 36,050,000 impressions. DISCUSSION: This type of coverage of this unexpected crime is unprecedented. The stolen colon caught the attention of People Magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, and more. The lifesaving messages of colorectal cancer prevention and the importance of screening were found on the “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to the Kansas City Police Department's Twitter feed. Commentaries took a light-hearted view of the incident, with an underpinning of the serious message of screening. The goal of using an educational tool such as an inflatable colon is to educate the public about the colon and preventative cancer screening. The surprising benefit to this unsolved crime is the conversations and engagement across the globe. An additional benefit of this petty thievery is the money donated to purchase an additional two inflatable colons. One person's wrongdoing resulted in an unprecedented conversation about colorectal cancer and the importance of screening for this largely preventable cancer.