The award-winning ‘boys’ – two of the two of the hairiest, wrinkliest and most frank-speaking brand ambassadors around – are back in a new campaign for the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA).
Currently airing in South Africa, “Back to Normal” features Jabu’s left testicle and Darryl’s right testicle.
This pair achieved great acclaim worldwide last year, including a Silver Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival, for their appearance in “Testi-Monials”, a series of interviews during which they shared their stories of cancer survival, informed guys about the benefits of early detection and challenged them to #havetheballs to talk about the issue.
The work received attention across the world, with millions earned in free publicity. It stimulated healthy conversation across radio, television, print and social media. The successful platform even inspired a few copycat campaigns for other causes, including singing breasts in Brazil.
This year, they’ve brought a friend, and set about doing all the things they used to do before they found those lumps because, if testicular cancer is detected early enough, there’s a 95% chance of returning to the same life you had before, including the really boring, mundane stuff.
Asked about the work, Executive Creative Director at FCB Cape Town, Mike Barnwell, explained: “Last year, CANSA briefed FCB Cape Town to get men talking about the rather awkward topic of testicular cancer … because the more open guys are to broaching the subject, the more chance they have of surviving this fairly common condition.
“‘Testi-monials’ was conceptualised by FCB Cape Town and brought to life in collaboration with its digital partners, Hellocomputer and Hellomotion.
“It worked off the insight that, when faced with something daunting and difficult, many guys don’t want to know about it; they’d much rather put their heads in the sand and pretend it didn’t exist.
“With this new campaign, we wanted to demonstrate that testicular cancer isn’t one of those scary things. Because even if a cancerous growth is discovered when doing a self-examination, chances are, if it’s found early enough, their lives will most likely return to normal. Just like Darryl’s, Jabu’s and Norman’s did.”
As with the 2016 campaign, the 2017 sequel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRreWhB5UHs – includes an online video and an informative website. And the new character, Norm, even has his own Instagram account where he shares all the crushingly ordinary stuff he gets up to on a daily basis.