Prostate Cancer Awareness
We were trying to promote testing for prostate cancer when we realized that most men didn’t even know where their prostate was.
ZERO (the second largest prostate cancer awareness organization in the country) came to WK.12 (Wieden+Kennedy's experimental ad program, of which I was a member) with a problem. Prostate cancer affects as many people as breast cancer does but it doesn't receive anywhere near the same amount of attention. ZERO wanted to change that and bring prostate cancer into the national conversation.
We realized that our problem was bigger than just prostate cancer awareness; we had to start with an anatomy lesson. While many people have heard of prostate cancer; most of them couldn’t tell you where the prostate is or what function it serves. In fact, I used to be one of those people. It turns out the prostate's located right next to your bladder and it produces semen. We wanted to find a compelling way to educate Americans about their own body while recommending healthy habits and regular testing. And as usual with WK.12, we had to run this national campaign with a tiny budget.
We launched the campaign with a series of print ads I wrote that ran in an array of free daily newspapers in New York:
Since the prostate is pretty indispensable when it comes to making babies we decided to take over Father's Day 2012 and turn it into Prostate Day. I wrote and animated (and taught myself to animate in the process) a series of web videos and pre-rolls to let America know about our takeover:
The Prostate also took over ZERO's Twitter, Facebook and website to encourage all internet citizens to spread his cantankerous gospel. I rewrote the website and a range of social media updates:
We sent out influencer kits to bloggers, journalists and celebrities. Thirty prominent individuals across the country opened up our branded box containing a life-size talking Prostate that addressed each influencer by name.
The campaign (and our sassy prostate) was written up on Huffington Post, Everyday Health, and many other sites.