Testicular Cancer Society taught men self-checks inside football highlights

One in 250 men will develop testicular cancer in their lifetime, and early detection is decisive, yet most men turn away from traditional self-check tutorials, online and offline. The Testicular Cancer Society needed a way to reach the men who ignore the serious version of the message.

FP7 McCann Dubai found a different kind of ball-focused content men love: football highlight videos. Players are constantly seen with their hands protectively covering their crotches, so the campaign interrupted popular videos with mid-rolls of players striking that stance while examining themselves.

The same lesson was woven into live commentary: YouTube livestreamers and the world's biggest sports radio station, Talksport, added playful self-check lines during free-kick setups, turning the tensest moment of a match into a teaching moment.

Highlight Your Balls earned 42 million impressions, a 45% rise in Testicular Cancer Society website visits, a 30% gain in acquisition, a 92% jump in homepage interactions, and a 338% surge in donations - on a media budget of about £7,000.

Use football's crotch-cover moment to teach self-checks

It meets young men inside content they already watch, so no new habit is required.

Humour disarms a topic that serious tutorials make them avoid.

The mid-roll borrows a real instinctive moment, so the lesson lands at peak attention.

A tiny budget forced a media idea instead of paid reach, and the idea out-earned it.

When the audience rejects the message, find the moment they already perform the behaviour you need to teach - then borrow that moment instead of building a new one.

Highlight Your Balls won the Grand Prix for Good at Dubai Lynx 2025 and a Cannes Lions Silver Lion for Brand Experience & Activation, and was a Media Week Awards finalist. The campaign logged 42 million impressions and lifted donations 338% on a media budget of roughly £7,000.