To encourage men to go to regular urologist check-ups sounds like a mission impossible.

That’s why we needed an unconventional way to reach them. Something like:

using Borussia Dortmund’s stadium pitch during a Bundesliga match as our ‘media platform’.

Sounds impossible? But with ‘A hand ball that could save your life’ we did it:

Our bump on the center circle was the eyecatcher of the entire Bundesliga match day and so our later revealed message got the full attention of men around the world.

Turning the lines on a Bundesliga pitch into a big statement for testicular cancer check-ups.

After the testicular cancer diagnoses of Borussia Dortmund’s newly signed 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.

To raise awareness for the early detection of testicular cancer, we did the impossible and broke up one of the most established elements in football during a Bundesliga match: the field lines on the holy pitch. We added a big bump on the center circle to symbolize a testicular tumor.

But fans and media didn’t know the meaning at that time and the speculation started …

We wanted to reach as many men as possible to raise awareness for regular testicular cancer check-ups. And where better to get in touch with them than in one of the biggest football stadiums in the world: Borussia Dortmund's Signal Iduna Park, a magical place, especially with its famous fan stand

‘The Yellow Wall’. Over 80,000 fans watch the Dortmund matches in the stadium and millions around the world in front of their TVs - 2/3 of them are men!

On Bundesliga match days media coverage is at its peak: With our dubious bump we wanted to purposely irritate the fans and the media so that they speculate on all platforms and let the center circle go viral. In this way, we created maximum attention for our important message during the half-time break – without any media budget.

We launched our stunt not only at the perfect place, but also on a date that couldn't be more appropriate: February 4th – World Cancer Day and home starting-eleven comeback of Sébastien Haller against SC Freiburg.

Before kick-off, we added a big bump on the center circle in the stadium to symbolize a testicular tumor, creating a giant irritating image which sparked speculation instantly: fans posted photos and created memes on their social channels and the media featured the dubious center circle.

After the buzz reached its peak, we resolved everything at half-time: in a video Haller and groundskeeper Willi Droste called on men to screen themselves regularly, revealing our motto:

‘A hand ball that could save your life’. Then, urologists educated the fans in interviews, a landing page with detailed information went live and a few days later men had the chance to get checked at Borussia’s test center.

The media buzz was enormous: from Dortmund to Rio, sports publishers and TV stations around the world featured our center circle. On social media, our bump was trending topic and famous football TV highlight shows had coverage on our campaign afterwards, thus generating an outstanding earned media volume of €2.2 million with a total budget of only 2,500 €.

But even more importantly is that our symbol 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.

With ‘A hand ball that could save your life’ we created a stunt par excellence:

A giant irritating symbol in the middle of a Bundesliga matchday made everyone speculate and share. Thus, creating the full attention for our important message when we revealed the symbolic meaning of the bump at half-time. A stunt that took place in one of the biggest football stadiums and sensitized men around the world for this disease – without any media budget.