With 'A handball that can save your life' we proved that big statements don't need big budgets.

A huge, irritating symbol in the middle of a Bundesliga match caused millions of fans and the media around the world to speculate. They made the center circle go viral and so we generated the full attention for our important message when we revealed everything at half-time.

A stunt par excellence without any media budget, but only with the tremendous power of PR.

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 a PR stunt that draws attention to the topic.

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 PR 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 bump 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 PR stunt even 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.