Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men, yet 55% of them don't want to talk about it.

How can we speak directly to them? Through men’s most loved sport: Football.

In Costa Rica, since childhood, every men knows that if a lump appears on the ball, the game is over. That’s why we created The Check Ball: a ball with a lump and the steps for the self-examination. It became the official ball of the semifinals of 2019 national championship.

During the campaign we got Google’s search peak of the year for “cáncer testicular”.

BlueCross BlueShield was about to launch its new testicular cancer insurance, the most common cancer in young men. But we found a problem, 55% of men don’t like to talk about this disease.

So we had to find a way to speak directly to them, a space where they would pay attention to us.

We used football to talk about our new insurance, but above all, to raise awareness about this issue among all men.

In Costa Rica, football is the main entertainment for men since they are children. That’s why every kid on the field knew that if a lump appeared on the ball, the game was over. So men have developed an almost instinctive ability to detect them.

Based on this instinct and along with doctors, artists and Erick Marín, a professional footballer and testicular cancer survivor, BlueCross BlueShield Costa Rica created The Check Ball, a unique ball with a lump and the steps for the self-examination.

We relied on men's favorite sport and this instinct that has been developed for years, to talk to them about a topic that more than half of them don’t like to talk about: testicular cancer.

In the campaign we involved doctors and Erick Marín, a professional footballer and survivor of testicular cancer who is loved by the fans. To provide real and concise information, but in a less technical and more understandable way.

In short, this is the message he gave to all men: if you know how to check this ball, you know how to check yours.

The campaign didn’t have a big budget, so we decided to launch it with Erick Marín as our spokesman, to spread our message through a renowned football player and testicular cancer survivor.

We launched the campaign in the month of testicular cancer to generate more buzz, and so it happened. The media immediately started to share it and the message reached thousands of people.

But the idea didn’t stop there. That same month, the semifinals of the national football tournament took place. We were clear that if we managed to enter that event in some way, the message would reach way more people, and we did it. After the noise generated at the beginning of the campaign, UNAFUT (the organization of the national championship) contacted us to make The Check Ball the official ball for the semifinals of the national tournament.

The Check Ball had such a big reception that it made news across the country, making Costa Rica’s favorite sport the perfect channel to remind men to check themselves. Also, in an organic way we became the official ball of the national football semifinals, and that increased the reach of the campaign.

More than $450.000 in earned media

In less than 24 hours, we got more than 140 minutes on the air

We reached 76% of Costa Ricans?

250% increase in leads for cancer insurance

The most hopeful result of this campaign is that men decided to learn more about this disease. Google’s search peak of the year in Costa Rica for “cáncer testicular" happened during the campaign.