Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in Slovakia. The numbers are alarming, up to 300 women die unnecessarily each year as a result of late diagnosis of breast cancer.

So, what's the challenge if hundreds of women could be saved just by undergoing preventive checkups?

Many Slovak women still do not make their own health a priority. 4 out of 5 women in Slovakia skip regular mammographic screening for breast cancer. And what's the reason? The most common excuse is not having enough time.

So, Slovak Ministry of Health decided to create a campaign addressing the topic of breast cancer and the importance of preventive mammography exams.

Our main goal was to raise awareness and educate women that mammogram is the only method to detect breast cancer in an early stage when tumors are just a few millimeters big.

Hundreds of women seek medical advice by the time it is too late. Always being busy and not having time for preventive mammogram checkups.

Thus, we came up with an unlikely solution, a unique type of media - instant pea soup which can help save women's lives.

It is not only pointing to the fact that a tumor can be literally the size of a pea and so undetectable with self-exam or any other method except mammogram. It also helps women save time.

All you have to do is to cook the instant pea soup for the family instead of spending hours in the kitchen cooking and thus save time for a mammogram exam. All important information about the mammography screening was printed right onto the packaging. Then, we made it available in all the Lidl stores in Slovakia where our target audience often shop.

We focus on women who have a higher risk of getting breast cancer. Our core audience are women who are 40 to 69 years old and should get a mammogram exam on a regular basis. Unfortunately, prevention and their health is not a priority for our audience.

That's why we decided to start conversation about breast cancer prevention at a rather surprising place where women aged 40 and older usually go - at the Lidl shops. Lidl, a discount supermarket chain in Slovakia actively engaged in the area of CSR, partnered with Slovak Ministry of Health to become part of the campaign.

We started the campaign with a briefing in one of the Lidl supermarkets. There right between the aisles of the supermarket, the Slovak minister of health and CEO of Lidl Slovakia, presented the unexpected symbol of the breast cancer campaign - the instant pea soup.

Then, we used Lidl's owned media to share the campaign. We presented its easy preparation in the famous Lidl Kitchen show on YouTube channel. Influencers helped us for free to share the topic with younger people who could then put pressure on their mothers and grandmothers.

With just Lidl´s owned media and minimal paid media budget, the soup itself became the core medium.

And it worked perfectly. Our lifesaving pea soup caught the attention of the media. Basically, all the major media covered the topic. We successfully opened the conversation about the importance of preventive mammogram exams and created buzz around the instant pea soup.

With investment of 5 982 € to paid media, the total generated media value of the campaign was 859 102 €. Thanks to the unlikely solution in the form of an instant pea soup, we made headlines and reached 76 % of women at risk of breast cancer. We sold 92 000 soups, raised money for breast cancer research and got the highest number of women since 2009 to undergo a preventive mammography screening. The campaign helped to start a conversation about breast cancer and educated women that mammogram is the only method which can detect tumors the size of a pea.