An intense snowfall in the Netherlands has served as an unexpected setting for an unconventional health awareness action. Beyond the usual snowmen, sculptures of penises made in the street began to appear and quickly attracted attention on social networks. Far from being a simple joke, the phenomenon has been used by the Testicular Cancer Foundation and Ogilvy Amsterdam as the creative axis of a campaign to raise awareness about testicular cancer.
Under the message “Give the same love to your own balls,” the initiative invites men to dedicate two minutes to periodic self-examination. The goal is to reduce the psychological and cultural barriers that continue to exist around these types of reviews, especially among young men.
Testicular cancer is the most common type of cancer among men aged 15 to 40 in the Netherlands, with around 800 new diagnoses annually. However, when detected early, the cure rate reaches 95%. Despite this, many people avoid talking about the topic or delay medical consultation due to embarrassment or ignorance.
Ivo Struik, Director of the Testicular Cancer Foundation, explains: “We see that humor helps address sensitive topics. If we can get men to smile and, at the same time, think about checking themselves, the message has a much better chance of getting through and translating into action.”
From the creative side, Tolga Büyükdoğanay, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy Amsterdam, points to contrast as a trigger for the idea: “We saw some people spending a lot of time and effort building huge snow penises as a joke. We figured if you can spend that much time on that, you can also spend two minutes checking your own health. In some cases, those two minutes can literally save a life.”
The campaign has been disseminated through the foundation’s Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn channels, with images processed using the WPP Open artificial intelligence platform. Along with the visual pieces, clear and simple instructions are shared to perform the testicular self-examination and a call to go to the doctor if you have any doubts or anomalies.
Beyond its immediate impact, the action reinforces a growing trend in social communication: using cultural codes, humor and viral formats to address public health issues without falling into alarmism, but nor into trivialization. In this case, snow penises function as a visual hook that turns an awkward conversation into something memorable and shareable.
