MTV Lebanon, an advocate of women’s health, wanted to stress the importance of yearly breast cancer screenings to Lebanese women/mothers, who didn’t view such a test as a priority compared to their children’s test scores.

The “Test for a Test” initiative, through a collaboration with the educational sector, created an experience where high school students refused to do their tests until their mothers went in for a breast cancer screening. It helped women/mothers re-evaluate their priorities and thereby resulting in an increase in screenings.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in Lebanon. Despite this, the number of breast cancer screening appointments was considerably low. That was because Lebanese women/mothers tended to prioritize their families & children over themselves. This point was the basis for our initiative.

In Lebanon, breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death among women. A key reason for this: they were not going for their yearly breast cancer screenings.

Despite numerous breast cancer campaigns run every year in October, over 74% of Lebanese women have not been tested, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

And it wasn’t an issue of being a social stigma, or a fear of the screening itself. Rather, they simply did not view it as a priority.

MTV Lebanon, one of the leading news channels in the country and a strong advocate of women’s health, wanted to shift this mindset through a breast cancer awareness campaign, with the objective of encouraging women to go in for a yearly breast cancer screening.

Lebanese women didn’t see breast cancer screenings as a priority. We needed to make it one. How? By utilizing their most important priority: their children.

As with all mothers, Lebanese ones want the best for their children and wish for their success. To them, that path to success is directly linked to their children’s performance in school, and therefore consistently makes sure to stay on top of their test grades.

At the same time, their children knew the importance of yearly breast cancer screenings and were not pleased at the idea of their mothers skipping out on such a vital check-up.

This led to our idea: “Test for a Test”. An initiative where children would refuse to take their tests until their mothers went in for a breast cancer screening. An initiative that forced breast cancer screenings to become a priority.

Our campaign targeted mothers over the age of 40, the mothers who had a higher risk of developing breast cancer, who had at least one child at a high school age.

It would have been easy for MTV to collaborate with the healthcare sector through a segment on the news, or interviews with doctors, or even highlighting other breast cancer campaigns that all had the same purpose of stressing the importance of yearly breast cancer screenings.

While highly informative, they most certainly were not engaging.

We needed to grab our audience’s attention, and there was nothing they paid more attention to than their own children.

So, for this campaign, we would not collaborate with the healthcare sector, but rather the educational sector – one where their children are most present.

To bring the “Test for a Test” initiative to life, MTV reached out to 12 schools across different areas in Lebanon.

When it came time for students to take any test, they would simply stand up, leave their classrooms, and strike, with a clear message saying that they would not do their tests until their mothers book a breast cancer screening appointment. These strikes were broadcast on a weekly basis on MTV’s nightly news segment.

We also took the initiative online, on school websites & student portals; whenever mothers wanted to check on their children’s grades, a pop-up would appear, making mothers pledge to book a breast cancer screening appointment before being able to check on their children’s grades.

The initiative ran throughout the entire month of October 2023.

Our initiative went far and wide across the country; it started off with the help of 12 schools. By the end of October, over 50 schools had taken part in it.

Additionally, it spread beyond MTV Lebanon, with other news channels & publications highlighting the campaign in their news segments.

The initiative also resonated very well with the Lebanese public, resulting in a 75% increase in positive sentiment for MTV compared to the same period last year.

Finally, and most importantly, the initiative proved effective in increasing the number of breast cancer screenings conducted by 32%, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.