Nestlé Fitness asked us to create a global Pink Ribbon Initiative for breast cancer awareness month. During October, our markets develop activities in support of more local pink ribbon initiatives, so we needed something that could umbrella their efforts, without adding complexity. Adding to the challenge, October is a month where is everything is already very… well pink, so we needed something simple yet engaging to capture attention.

Breast self-examination is a key weapon in the fight against breast cancer. So we decided to remind women, in a totally unconventional way, to check themselves. We got straight to the point and used… breasts, or more specifically a bra, to tell our story. The bra was fitted with a tiny HD camera to record exactly what breasts saw: people checking them out. We created an online film capturing a “day-in-the-life” of the bra that delivered a unique and thought-provoking message:

‘Your breasts are checked out every day. So, when was the last time you checked your own?’

In a world where everything has to be seen to be believed, we turned a health issue affecting women into a social experiment that spoke to women and men. The video went viral, achieving over 9 million views in the first two weeks. With the majority of local media dollars focused on amplifying local initiatives, we focused on global PR to lead the drive for organic reach.

The campaign was slated to run during the month of October in fourteen markets. The video was produced globally, but then handed it off to local markets to adapt. With no guarantee that markets would support the initiative with media dollars, we had to rely on PR to help ensure the video got the right amount of exposure.

Once a few major PR articles came in, Nestlé Fitness Bra Cam started spreading from YouTube to blogs, and from blogs to social media. With minimal paid investment, the online film generated massive organic reach across all online channels and kept spreading.

Within two weeks of launch and minimal paid investment, the film generated over 9 million views and 2,500 press articles from a number of outlets—WSJ, TIME and Perez Hilton. Best of all? The story created a shift in Google search from porn to breast cancer awareness.

As talk around women’s breast health continues to become less and less taboo, the true achievement for FITNESS lied in making women and the men in their lives more aware that vigilance is the first tool in fighting breast cancer.