ADC Awards
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Category
Live Experiences / Guerrilla / Stunt
Annual ID
ADC102_EXP014M
About the Work
After the testicular cancer diagnoses of Borussia Dortmund’s football star Sébastien Haller and three other Bundesliga players, this disease has recently been put in the spotlight.
In Germany, around 4,000 men are diagnosed with this malignant tumor every year.
But while it’s quite normal for women to go for breast cancer screening, urologist check-ups are still literally a no-go for most men. Time to break these taboos with an idea never seen before in football’s history.
To raise awareness for the early detection of this disease, we launched the ‘A hand ball that could save your life’ stunt. On February 4th, the Borussia Dortmund vs SC Freiburg Bundesliga match and World Cancer Day, we changed the field lines on the holy pitch in the stadium and added a big bump on the center circle to symbolize a testicular tumor.
A giant attention-grabbing image which sparked speculation among the fans and the media. After the buzz reached its peak, we resolved everything at half-time and educated the fans.
And only a few minutes later the miracle happened: in the 51st minute of the match, Sébastien Haller scored his first Bundesliga goal after his recovery and turned our bump into a story that gave everyone goosebumps.
The media buzz was enormous: from Dortmund to Rio, sports publishers and TV stations around the world featured our surprising stunt. On social media, we reached millions of people, and famous football TV highlight shows had coverage on our center circle afterwards.
But even more importantly is that our bump created the desired effect: urologist slots at Borussia’s test center were fully booked after a short time, making our story literally go full circle.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 3
Merit Honor
Credits
Agency
Accenture Song Germany / Hamburg
Client / Brand
Borussia Dortmund / Dortmund
Art Director
Simon Herret
Copywriter
Rasesh Patkar
Director of Photography
Alexander Hildenberg
Executive Creative Director
Christoph Bielefeldt
Agency Producer
Jan-Ole Brendel
Account Manager
János Dunai
Art Producing
Martin Piechotta
Creative Director Art
Michael Hülsbeck
Director of Marketing & Digitalization
Alexander Mühl
Executive Director Sports
Holger Hansen
Head of Marketing
Marius Happe
Junior Art Director
Roos Mehrtens
Junior Copywriter
Erik Baeßmann
Managing Director Creation
Fabian Frese
Post producer
Ole Brand
Team Lead Brand Management
Kim Wölfel
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