BlueCross BlueShield ‘The Check Ball’ Cancer Campaign Gets Costa Rican Men Talking About Balls

A campaign by BlueCross BlueShield in Costa Rica revolved around a specially created football which sought to get men talking about and checking their balls, as well as to promote the brand’s new cancer insurance.

The global insurer worked with agency Havas Cost Rica to create an integrated campaign called ‘The Check Ball’ which launched in the second half of March, which focused on soccer/football and which targeted adult men.

The campaign emerged from insight showing that testicular cancer is the most common cancer among young men and yet 55% of them wont’ or don’t want to talk about it. So this campaign aimed to change that reluctance by leveraging the country’s most popular sport – football.

In Costa Rica, pretty much every man played football as a child and the creative idea was based around everyone recognising that when the ball goes out of shape and has a lump on it, then the game needs to stop and something needs to be done about the ball.

The campaign is features doctors, artists and professional football and testicular cancer survivor Erick Marín. It saw BlueCross BlueShield create ‘The Check Ball’: a unique branded ball with a lump on it and which also has the the steps for the self-examination written into its leather.
The ball and the message was amplified in-game around the country’s leagues and via a multi-channel campaign.

The campaign was created by a team at Havas Costa Rica which included Chief Creative Director Josafat Padilla, Creative Director Sebastián Quirós, Art Director Andrea Castro, Copywriter Daniel Calderón, Head of Art Roberto Morales, Account Director Karla Vargas, with Photographers Yeudy Guido and Melissa Rojas, as well as Chief Executive Officer Diego García, Designer Sofía Fuentes and Head of Production Walter Benavides.

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