Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s campaign began with an ambitious goal – zero deaths from breast cancer.

Achieving that begins with finding cancer early because it gives women the best chance of successful treatment and survival. So Special New Zealand and Taika Waititi made a deliberately steamy film to get people watching. The campaign, Save your life. Rinse. Repeat, is designed to make breast self-checking part of women’s everyday shower routine, bridging the gap between knowing to perform a self-breast check and doing it.

Waititi was approached by Special with a brief that needed a very specific kind of director, someone who could handle a sensitive health subject with humour, nuance and cultural relevance, without losing the message. Waititi, who also joined the campaign in-kind, then assembled a crew most never get to work with – Ra Vincent, the Oscar-nominated production designer behind Jojo Rabbit, created the set. Curious Film produced it, and actor, Xavier Garneau-Roughan, leads the film. 

Special New Zealand shaped the research behind the campaign, created the idea and carried it all way through creative, production and advertising as a philanthropic effort from the agency and all partners. The agency’s PR arm then turbocharged its reach with a three-tier influencer programme, rallying Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s ambassadors, earned creators and paid talent to flood the feed, backed by a strategic global earned media push that took the message well beyond New Zealand.

The idea emerged after the survey of 1,000 women found that almost all New Zealand women (94%) agree regular breast checking is important, but 82% say it is easy to forget. Only 37% had checked in the past month, and nearly seven in ten said nothing in their routine reminds them to do it.

The shower became the answer. More than half of the women who had checked said that’s where they last did it, but it still wasn’t working as a regular prompt, so the Foundation made breast self-checking in the shower something women are unlikely to forget. 

The result is a deliberately steamy, cinematic film – a very slow, very soapy shower, with a straightforward instruction to women watching that while they’re in the shower, they may as well have a feel for themselves.

The 60-second hero spot leads the campaign across TV, Cinema, BVOD, SVOD, radio, and social, with support from OOH and digital placements led by media buying agency PHD. 

The idea also extends beyond traditional media through to contextual placements such as in gym showers where women are more likely to act in the moment. Glow Lab has added breast-check reminders to its entire 900ml body wash range, putting the prompt in bathrooms nationwide from launch day.

Taika Waititi stated,“Breast cancer has affected many people in my life, including my mother and mother-in-law, so my involvement in this project was never in question. We set out to create something entertaining that also carries an important message – check your breasts.”

Vanessa Sorenson, CEO of Breast Cancer Foundation NZ, added,”Working with Special has been incredible. From the very first conversation, they challenged us to think differently about a problem we’ve been working on for a long time. Bringing Taika on board was a real coup, and the whole Special team has been an extraordinary partner, bold in their thinking, meticulous in the craft, and deeply respectful of what this cause means to so many New Zealanders.”

Bethany Omeri, Special head of strategy, commented, “Women already know breast checking is an important thing to do,  but it’s easy for it to fall off their already very long to-do list. Women told us they couldn’t carve out more time for yet another thing, so we wanted to repurpose one of their existing precious moments of ‘me time’. The shower also conveniently provides the perfect conditions for this life-saving act. 

Lisa Fedyszyn, Special chief creative officer, added,“There’s no one time of day that works for every woman. We have different jobs, families, routines and lives. But we all have a shower, just thankfully not at the same time. So instead of asking women to remember one more thing, we wanted to attach breast checking to something they already do. Save your life. Rinse. Repeat.”