Boobs on parade,
all for a good cause
What's an eyecatching way to raise awareness of breast cancer?
By Toni Fitzgerald
Nov 4, 2011
There's really no delicate way to describe the gimmick behind a recent alternative media stunt for breast cancer awareness, so here it is in the most indelicate of terms: Boobies.
They were on full display, four pairs of them.
They belonged to models who walked the streets of Toronto a few weeks ago wearing no shirts. No tops whatsoever.
Their breasts, wearing only flesh-colored nipple covers, were visible. Written upon them in black paint were messages related to breast cancer.
"Bras aren't the only support they need," read the words on one woman's chest.
"Hang out for a good cause," read another's.
As you might imagine, the women attracted quite a bit of attention. In fact, they literally stopped traffic when a double-decker tour bus pulled over so riders could get a closer look.
The stunt was to promote Rethink Breast Cancer's 10th annual Boobyball, which raises money to fight breast cancer.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Rethink's agency, had to come up with a way to get attention with a budget that was literally zero dollars.
"Teams were already thinking of doing big attention grabbing things. And yes, they were thinking of breasts. They had to be," says Aaron Starkman, executive creative director at CP+B.
"Our goal is to have the most talked about, written about and outrageously effective work in the world. The press release for this idea was 'Boobyball spreads the word using a medium that has never been used for advertising –women's breasts.'"
Finding the models was the first step. CP+B sent a request to a modeling agency seeking women who would be willing to walk around with their shirts off for a good cause.
"One of the models is a breast cancer survivor and has been writing about the experience," Starkman says.
Using stencils and a special kind of body paint, the messages were written on the models' chests.
"We did use nipple covers and camouflaged them to match the models' skin tones. We then placed the stencils over top to write our messages," Starkman explains.
The women spent Oct. 3 on the streets of Toronto alternately getting ogled at and answering questions about Boobyball, as well as handing out information about it.
Canadian comedian Howie Mandel happened to be one of the passersby. He took a picture of himself with the models and tweeted it to his 300,000 followers, giving the campaign an unexpected worldwide reach.
The stunt worked because of its shock value. Just about the last thing you expect to see in a public place are bare breasts, and once you get over the shock the message of breast cancer awareness sticks with you.
By all accounts, the campaign was a huge success, generating a ton of publicity for the event. As a bonus, it was for such a good cause that CP+B says they didn't get any complaints about the nudity.
"We had lots of people stop and ask questions, ask what was happening and why we were doing this," Starkman says.
"We had many people who wanted to have their picture taken with the models, and then uploaded the pictures to Facebook and Twitter."
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