Men do not take care of their health, let alone seek medical care. According to the Instituto Lado a Lado pela Vida, 60% of men only seek a specialist when the symptoms of some disease are unbearable. Because of sexism, this is even worse when it comes to prostate cancer. Daily, 44 men die from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Gillette has always supported men to be their best version every day. And that has everything to do with health.

The brand saw in Movember, the awareness movement about prostate cancer that takes place in November and has the mustache as a symbol, an opportunity to transform the relationship men have with their own health. And they chose the World Cup for this — the event that, for the first time ever, took place in November, the same month as Movember.

According to Jill Miller, a consultant at the Institute of Personnel and Development, normalizing and discussing issues helps break the taboos that surround them.

Men don't talk about their health. Let alone about prostate cancer. On the other hand, in Brazil, they talk a lot about football. All the time. According to Google, football was the second most searched subject in the country in 2022.

What if prostate cancer became as much of a discussion topic among male audiences as football?

Then, circumventing the millionaire sponsorships of the World Cup, we managed to put prostate cancer on the agenda when the goalkeeper of the Brazilian national team entered the field with a mustache, revealing the reason for the change of look with a video on his Instagram posted shortly after the match.

The PR strategy was created to reach a large audience with an awareness movement and to have the potential to generate talkability because, if we wanted to help break the taboo and change human behavior, it was necessary to make more people talk about the topic.

The target was the 18+ male audience with an interest in football. That's why we chose the World Cup, an event closely followed by our audience and covered by hundreds of media outlets around the world. Everything was executed in an omnichannel way so that the appearance of goalkeeper Alisson in the opening game could also be publicized on social media.

On November 24th, Brazil made its debut at the World Cup, which, for the first time, also took place in the same month as Movember.

In the match, Alisson entered the field with a mustache only. A look never flaunted by the player, who always sported a long beard.

Soon after, Alisson's Instagram profile posted a video that revealed the real reason behind the mustache.

During and after the game, the repercussion was huge. Thousands of comments praised the campaign and outlets around the world echoed the news, connecting Gillette to Movember and bringing more information about the disease.

The brand then interacted with people and other brands, such as Budweiser, ESPN, Guaraná Antárctica’s Canarinho Pistola, and even Turma da Mônica, one of the country’s biggest pop culture references, making the discussion even bigger.

The Mustache that Plays for Everyone helped break the taboo on prostate cancer by getting people to talk about it. In one day, the subject became a Trending Topic in 5 countries. The action generated 1.4 billion impressions, $10 million in Earned Media, and more than 3 million engagements, with 50% of that total linking the idea of prostate cancer to Gillette. Overall, 400 media outlets put the issue under discussion in 38 countries.

All this awareness and engagement have made prostate cancer searches on Google beat the highest record of all time and made the scheduling of exams in the country’s main hospital reach the milestone of 21 thousand, 50% more than the previous year.

If talking about it helps break a taboo, we brought prostate cancer closer to not being one.