There was launched over the weekend an advertising campaign for hospice care in Singapore. It used shock tactics - the headline on the full page, text-only launch ad said: I have lung cancer - and how are you? The idea behind the ads was presumably to bring cancer out of the shadows, and to get the general population to look at terminal cancer patients as people who are still alive, just on their final journey. The TVC I saw had a man saying: Come join me on my final journey.

I must admit that while I support the sentiment, I did not appreciate the tactics. We are all, in a sense, on our final journeys, whether or not we have cancer, and whether or not it is terminal. To me, shock as a strategy is an extreme form of interruption marketing and denotes an agency that simply did not spend enough time trying to understand the brief properly, or a client that lacks imagination, resulting in a campaign that is lacking in sensivity and maturity.

To use terminally ill cancer patients as the springboard for this lack of imaginative power is reprehensible, and in poor taste. I am not sure what the objective of the campaign is, or why this strategy was necessary - the fact that this is unclear is another weakness of the campaign. Shock campaigning also may have the opposite effect ie, to turn people off.

The tagline 'lifebeforedeath' makes nonsense of the fact that everyone diagnosed with cancer should be buoyed up, given as much hope as possible. This is what makes the difference on our respective journeys. Even if one is terminal, there are so many treatment options available today that more and more, people are defying the odds and living longer than the original 3-5 month prognosis for terminal cancer.

To focus on death is to lose sight of the fact that each day that we are given is precious and should be lived for its own sake, not because the ending of it takes us a step closer to death. It is imperative after diagnosis to hold to a 'glass half-full' mindset.

Sure, cancer patients all face a loss of years, or weeks, of life. But to tell ourselves to live more fully just because of our wake-up call to me is doing the rest of humanity a disservice. I believe that as the ones receiving the wake-up call, we should be spending our time working with our loved ones to live better, indeed, live exceedingly well, even if we are not there to do so with them. And that means a focus on the quality of life in the here and now, and a readdressing of priorities. That is the legacy.

Paradoxically, a brush with death should really mean a resultant focus on life in all its forms, mysteries and glories. We none of us knows when the end will come - cancer or no. It is therefore irrelevant to focus on death. The message on cancer should be - celebrate life - NOW! This is what will keep cancer patients positive, and the attitude to cancer positive. Cancer needs to be taken out of the realm of dread whisperings, and made part of the buzz of daily conversation. It keeps us in the mainstream, and relevant. It keeps the discussion on cancer front and centre.

To highlight the terminally ill as being different from others is to marginalise them, and this is something that anyone with cancer will tell you they do not want - for themselves personally, or for their cancer.