The Male Cancer Awareness Campaign (MCAC) is a small charity that is on a mission to tackle prostate, testicular and bowel cancer. About 19,000 British men die of these conditions every year - many of them because they are too embarrassed to talk about their symptoms and don't seek help early enough. So we set out to make the issue very public and social. We asked the men of Britain to ditch their underpants for one day and wear a sticker instead. By 'Going Commando', they would be more aware of their bodies and by wearing a sticker, they would be more likely to talk about the subject with friends and family.

We asked the men of Britain to ditch their underpants for one day and wear a sticker instead, to show they were “Going Commando”. We gave the stickers away at 265 Paddy Power betting shops – as well as at the Headquarters of some of Britain’s biggest companies, from Google to Virgin, the Guardian to Sky. We then used PR (along with a small advertising campaign in free spaces) to promote the stickers and the event itself. The campaign ran for 2 weeks: the first was spent building interest online while making sure that any teething problems with the stickers were overcome; the second was spent ramping up interest in the big day itself.

Despite no spend (all media was either earned, owned or donated), we generated a huge amount of publicity. The editorial coverage alone reached a potential audience of 290 Million. The campaign also received over 36 Million Twitter impressions, boosted the charity’s Facebook traffic by 350% and increased website visits by 1400% (89% of them new to the charity). Loads of celebrities joined in, from politicians to pop stars. And on the big day, over 65,000 men wore a sticker to proudly declare that they were Going Commando. Most encouragingly, in a post-campaign survey, the equivalent of 16M people claimed that they’d be up for joining in next year.