Sydney agencies Soap Creative, Magnum & Co., Ensemble and Society Social have teamed up to create an integrated, content-led campaign for the Cancer Institute NSW to increase awareness of the shocking number of preventable deaths from melanoma and the importance of sun protection.

Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach was the setting of choice to bring to life a creative outdoor strategy that involved murals, a claw machine giving away sunscreen and statements in the sand, all collectively aimed to promote the message of sun safety and showcase the devastating effects of melanoma.

The campaign cut through to its target audience of young Australians, achieving a combined potential reach of over 24 million.

To reflect Soap Creative’s confronting ‘Your Time in the Sun’ video, directed by Josh Logue and featuring Caitlyn Patterson, a mural at Bondi Beach was progressively altered by renowned street artists Steen Jones and Sid Tapia over a week to show the damaging effects of UV on the skin over time.

A second mural on the Bondi Art Wall was a beach-inspired piece with a strong call to action, urging Australians to #protectyourskin. The mural, which was shared organically, reached a potential 123,994 people through social media.

To further increase sunscreen application among beachgoers, Cancer Institute NSW’s lifestyle brand, Pretty Shady, set up a claw machine for a week on Bondi Beach, giving away more than 4,000 free sunscreen tubes.

In order to showcase how many deaths are predicted to occur in Australia from melanoma over the next five years, Magnum & Co. and Ensemble joined forces to plaster 9,883 across the sand.

Using over 400 items of sun protection merchandise from Pretty Shady, the bold stunt aimed to simultaneously reiterate the number of lives that could be saved if Aussies adopt the Institute’s five step advice of slip, slop, slap, seek and slide.

Alecia Brooks, portfolio manager for skin cancer prevention at Cancer Institute NSW, said: “With Bondi Beach a popular place for both locals and tourists to enjoy the sun, we’ve been able to reach an audience across NSW, Australia and beyond.

“We wanted to use this opportunity to warn people of the fatal effects of melanoma in an impactful way through the confronting murals and the figure in the sand, whilst reminding them that it is preventable by adopting sun protection behaviours, starting with the free sunscreen we provided.”

CREDITS

Communications agency: Magnum & Co

Brand experience partnership manager: Sophia Davison, Ensemble

Production agency: The Big Kahuna Imagineering

Production manager – Will Colhoun

Client: Cancer Institute NSW

Client lead – Alecia Brooks

Media advisers – Laura Kiely and Erin Manning

Principal talent: Caitlyn Paterson

Creative agency: Soap Creative

Executive creative director – Bradley Eldridge

Strategy director – Alex Houghton

Account director – Johan Borg and Sam Francis

Producer – Henry Hill

Copywriter – Bradley Eldridge

Copywriter – Michael Hughes

Design – John Westfallen, Brad James and Stefan Derewianka

Production company: World Wide Mind

Director – Josh Logue

Executive producers – Will Alexander and Michelle Parker

Producers – Alistair Pratten and Yvonne Ortiz

DOP – Simon Ozolins

Post-production: Heckler

VFX supervisor – Tom Corbett

Post-producer – Alison Kennedy

Music and sound design: Electric Sheep