Brazil is one of the countries with more cases of penile cancer. Per year, 1,600 men have it partially or totally amputated. It happens mostly because of misinformation. The main solution to reduce the chances of contracting this disease is to wash it well with water and soap. How can we raise awareness to the greatest number of people? That’s why, Instituto Lado a Lado pela Vida – a NGO that has been acting for 12 years in health sector and the only one in Brazil that works in Men Healthcare – created the campaign “Wash the thing”, a calendar on Instagram @laveoditocujo to remember every day the importance of daily “washing the thing”. The objective was to instruct, entertain, and engage the highest number of people as possible, helping them to prevent the disease.

Because of the machismo culture, talking about male health in Brazil is still a taboo. To break this barrier, the NGO LAL brought the problem in a completely new way, through the humor and popular creativity. If men create a bunch of funny expressions to talk about penis, we decided to use the same expressions to remind them to “wash the thing” and we proposed a cultural change.

The solution to reduce the chances of contracting the penile cancer is quite simple: water and soap.

So, we had a simple idea: repeat, repeat, and repeat this information with the most entertaining possible ways, using humor and popular creativity.

That’s why we launched the campaign “Wash the thing” for Instituto Lado a Lado pela Vida, a NGO that has been acting for 12 years in health sector and the only one in Brazil that works in Men Healthcare. We created a calendar on Instagram @laveoditocujo, where a funny reminder was daily posted with illustrations and different synonyms of penis, so nobody would forget to wash it.

The campaign was made totally by volunteers – more than 350 artists joined the cause – for representing the nicknames in 366 arts and different synonyms all long the year.

Men usually don’t talk about intimate healthcare.

The subject is taboo and, always when the word “penis” comes out, it becomes a joke.

The lack of the correct genitalia cleaning is the main cause of penile cancer.

- Brazil is the fifth country in highest number of cases*.

- There are 6,200 new cases every year*.

- On average, 1,600 amputations*.

- 458 deaths*.

*source: INCA (Cancer National Institute)

The Instituto Lado a Lado pela Vida fights to raise awareness about the importance of intimate cleaning and decreasing cancer and amputation cases.

But how can we do it if the subject always becomes a “joke” among men?

Using the same sense of humor to make them to “wash the thing”.

This was our strategy: to use amusement to instruct, entertain, and engage people to talk openly about the subject.

Because of the machismo culture, it’s too difficult for men to talk seriously about subjects related to healthcare of their own genital organ. On the other hand, when the topic is to make jokes, they create a bunch of nicknames for penis.

With $0 investment, since January 1st, 2020, we daily posted an art on Instagram, so nobody would forget to wash every day the penis (cleaning it is the main prevention for this cancer type). Each art used a common name for penis, illustrating the organ in a funny and entertaining way, since it’s still a taboo in Brazil. These illustrations were made respecting the characteristics of each artist, but always including the element water, reminding the cleaning. The campaign was all collaborative and counted on artists from all places of the world.

The content of “Wash the thing” has resulted more than 8 million impressions, causing almost 1 million engagements. The contents were reposted and shared by influencers on Instagram. The disclosure has become almost 615 thousand of views. All of this with volunteer work and R$0 investment.

Engagement + 965,202

Total impressions +8,420,048

+614,794 disclosure views

1st place on Trending Topics in Brazil.

The Health Department of São Paulo City adopted our campaign as public disclosure.

The Brazilian Health Ministry will invest unprecedented R$20 million in penile cancer prevention.