Case Film

Presentation Image

Title	CHECK IT BEFORE IT'S REMOVED: NAKED BREASTS ON FACEBOOK AGAINST BREAST CANCER.
Brand	PINK RIBBON DEUTSCHLAND
Product/Service	BREAST CANCER AWARENESS
Category	A08. Charities, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages
Entrant	DDB GROUP GERMANY Berlin, GERMANY
Idea Creation	DDB GROUP GERMANY Berlin, GERMANY
PR	DDB GROUP GERMANY Berlin, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Myles Lord	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Creative Managing Director
Tom Hauser	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Executive Creative Director
Lilli Langenheim	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Senior Art Director
Isabella Jorgensen	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Junior Art Director
Edward Sedelius	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Senior Copy Writer
Taria Hocke	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Junior Copy Writer
Nikolai Diepenbrock	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Creative Director Copy
David Barton	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Client Service Director
Catrin Schmid	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Account Director
Paul Dombek	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Account Manager
Nabila Korte	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Auszubildende Kauffrau für Marketingkommunikation, Beratung
Eric Schoeffler	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Chief Creative Officer
Konradin Resa	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Creative Director Digital
Marc Kaufholz	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Senior Designer
Tom Hormann	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Junior Planner
Philipp Ciba	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Social Media Manager
Sebastian Hudert	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Illustrator
Hannes Caspar	Hannes Caspar	Photographer
behind the scenes GmbH, Berlin	behind the scenes GmbH, Berlin	Art Buying
Bleech UG, Berlin	Bleech UG, Berlin	Programmer
Art Liaison Agency Special Key, Berlin	Art Liaison Agency Special Key, Berlin	Artist Liaison
Laura Marolt	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Head of Corporate Communications, Taskforce
Timo Giersch	DDB Group Germany GmbH	Junior Corporate Communications Manager, Public Relations
Zhong To	Freelancer	Filmmaker, Cinematographer and Designer

The Campaign

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram strictly prohibit the display of female nipples. On International Women’s Day 2016, 17 brave women challenged these restrictions. They each bared a naked breast on Facebook and Instagram, urging all women to “Check it before it’s removed”. Pink Ribbon Germany, together with female social influencers, shared the pictures with their online communities on Facebook and Instagram. National and international celebrities, singers, bloggers and athletes shared the pictures with millions of their followers, encouraging them to quickly re-share the posts before they were censored by moderators. In a matter of hours, Facebook and Instagram began deleting the posts. But as the pictures were removed from social media, the buzz and awareness around the story was building in mainstream media.

Creative Execution

17 women posed for a photographer exposing one of their breasts. These pictures were then posted to Facebook and Instagram with the statement: CHECK IT BEFORE IT’S REMOVED. Each post was accompanied by text encouraging others to quickly re-share the post before it was censored – along with the hashtag #checkitearly. The post also lead to the website www.checkitbeforeitsremoved.com where people could learn about breast self-examination. Pink Ribbon Germany shared the first picture on their Facebook fan page at 9AM on March 8, International Women’s Day. National celebrities and influencers shared Pink Ribbon’s pictures to millions of fans on Facebook and Instagram, encouraging them to quickly re-share. Facebook and Instagram began to remove the pictures immediately. Even Pink Ribbon themselves had their posts deleted for contravening Facebook and Instagram’s strict guidelines. As the pictures were removed from social media, the story was building up in mainstream media.

On International Women’s Day Pink Ribbon’s awareness message reached 29 Million contacts, the equivalent of €2.2 Million in earned media. With a media spend of 0- Euro. On March 8, traffic to Pink Ribbon’s breast cancer awareness information increased by 27,984%. The 3 minute breast self-examination tutorial video on the website had a 92% view-through rate. Due to public opinion and increasing media attention, Facebook and Instagram stopped removing the posts, allowing the message to continue reaching more and more young women.

Context is everything. Facebook and Instagram are not new media in themselves, but never before have their strong censorship restrictions been so purposefully used to generate awareness. By creating this controversial social media action, Pink Ribbon was able to bring breast cancer awareness to the fore, making it one of the biggest topics on International Women’s Day, March 8th, 2016. As Facebook and Instagram moderators worked to remove the message, the story grew and lived on in mainstream media.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

To reach our target audience of younger women, we went to a place where young women are most active – Facebook and Instagram. The very places where breasts would be removed. By triggering Facebook and Instagrams strict censorship policies, we were able to create a strong analogy and demonstrate the urgency of the issue. Because these posts would have a very short life expectancy we needed to quickly spread the pictures far and wide with the help of social influencers: female celebrities who came together to create a viral wave of posts on International Women’s Day and activate their followers to quickly re-share before they were removed. The removal of images added fuel to the existing discussion around “free the nipple”, social censorship and gender equality – making Pink Ribbons message a strong topic in the media on International Women’s Day.