Over the years, cancer has been thought to be a condition that can become more common as we get older, resulting in the general belief that it is a condition limited to old people.

This type of behavior is having a negative implication on younger audiences, as they usually lack awareness about the condition in a moment where the increase in cases in the 15 - 35 age group has grown exponentially year after year.

Another critical factor in the equation is that very few are clear about the importance of self-examination for the early detection of such conditions, which would significantly increase people's life expectancy.

Therefore, it became a priority for us to find a way to help increase awareness among these age groups in ways that they would understand the urgency, and that would be the most appealing and least complicated to understand.

Joystick Test is an initiative that brings together the 25 most important Latin American gamers and together with the Colombian League Against Cancer, teach their followers the necessary movements to make a self-exam.

We identified more than 300 tricks in the most famous video games which coincide with the breast and testicular cancer self-exam and turned them into the first tutorials that teach their followers how to take care of their characters' lives, but also take care of the most important: theirs.

Aiming to increase awareness among younger audiences, and find ways to make them really connect, we set out to review territories and channels where the message would reach them directly.

Problem: As there is very little urgency to self-examination among these age groups, they rarely read or review content related to this condition or resources authorized by medical entities, delaying the urgency to self-examination.

Solution: We found that the age range between 15 and 35 is exactly the same as the most important gamer groups in the region, so they became the perfect match to help us connect with our main audiences, and as we were able to identify more than 300 tricks in the most famous video games which coincide with the breast and testicular cancer self-exam movements, it became the perfect vehicle to deliver an awareness message and a DIY tutorial to increase self-examination within these audiences.

The execution of the joystick test was a two-phase delivery.

First, we needed to find a way to match our message with the right channel, so we identified the most influential gamers in the region and developed the right strategy for the implementation.

Through the second phase, we needed to identify the right joystick tricks and matched them with our message. This initiative was launched on 08/29/2021 during the international day of the gamer, its implementation was intended to last two months, but due to its great success, it has remained live until today.

We used the social networks commonly used by gamers, such as Twitch, Facebook Gaming, Nimo TV, Instagram, and Youtube, in order to reach a wider audience and make sure we scaled accordingly to the audience size in the region.

Ever since the launch of the joystick test, we reached over 392 hours of streaming among all gamers, where more than 325 joystick tricks were identified.

We got + 400 thousand interactions on social media, and a record of 3 million gamers reached across all platforms.