A creative Croatian campaign gets women to make a promise to each other

We’ve conducted a collection of case studies featuring award-winning native advertising examples. This blog post features The Best Native Advertising Strategy.

Introduction

Campaign: #pinkypromiss
Brand: Association 'You Are Not Alone'
Agency: 24sata, Croatia

According to the latest figures, 900 women on average die of breast cancer in Croatia every year. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women but 90% of women will survive if it’s identified early. And the surest way of early discovery is a monthly routine of self-examination.

But that’s the trouble. Breast cancer often goes undetected until it’s too late, for the simple reason that many women don’t examine themselves for fear of finding something. How could a campaign raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of self-examination?

The Content

In partnership with the association 'You Are Not Alone', Croatian agency 24sata hit upon the idea of getting women to raise awareness themselves. With their campaign #Pinkypromiss, the concept was to encourage women to take care of themselves by making a pinky promise to their girlfriends. Even if women were not going to examine themselves for their own sake, they might do it for their friends.

#Pinkypromiss invited two girlfriends to make a pledge: to promise to support each other in fighting breast cancer. During the year-long campaign, they were able to create personalised, motivational email reminders that encouraged each other to do a self-check every month. In addition to the reminders, they could find healthcare advice, useful support contacts and instructions on how to do regular self-checks.

To increase awareness around breast cancer, the campaign emphasized the stories of cancer survivors. Their emotional journeys were motivational and encouraging for all women still fearful of self-examination.

Given that the campaign’s core target audience was millennial women, 24sata created a number of interactive formats in which women could tag each other and draw attention to important topics. Through encouraging and relatable messages, friendship facts and supporting reminders, the campaign achieved a massive engagement with the content.

Distribution

The entire campaign was digitally based, funnelling users to a campaign microsite. #Pinkypromiss offered a unique interactive experience by inviting readers to the microsite so they could make a pinky promise with their closest friend.

To boost the audience’s engagement and participation, 224sata published a video featuring Ida Prester, a well-known Croatian presenter and musician, at the beginning of the campaign.

Content was also distributed on the popular women’s website, miss7, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. The campaign was also supported by display.

The Results

The 12-month campaign managed to exceed its targets in three months.

Number of early-stage breast cancer cases detected: 5
Total microsite views: 300,000+,200,000 more than estimated
Total article views: 241,000+, 141,000 more than estimated
Total subscriptions for reminder emails: 600+, 300 more than estimated
Total educational video views: 190,000+

In raising awareness about breast cancer, the campaign brought together key stakeholders in Croatia and attracted the support of numerous influencers. The largest news portals and TV houses in Croatia also spread the word.

Of all the results, however, the favourite was this: thanks to the #Pinkypromiss campaign, as many as five women detected breast cancer at an early stage and were given an opportunity for complete recovery.

Take Note

24sata was on a mission to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of regular self-examination. Since it knew it could potentially save lives, it used every single touchpoint to imprint this important message, including its very target audience. How did it do this?

The core creative concept involved one person prompting another through the #Pinkypromiss pledge and interactive social media formats such as tagging and encouraging engagement. This approach allowed 24sata to increase organic reach, get much-needed word-of-mouth recommendations from close friends and ultimately, amplify the campaign's voice.
Since the campaign was targeting millennials, it was crucial to engage them through relatable platforms and personalities. An important part of the strategy involved a kick-off video featuring a presenter well-known to the audience and distribution through a media brand positioned as the “best friend“ for women. Emotional and motivational stories from cancer survivors were also critical for engagement.
24sata brought all relevant stakeholders to one table – different associations, pharma and various personalities united to achieve synergy and reach a wider audience through their support.