Flor Leibaschoff and Aldo Quevedo of BeautifulBeast, and Jemilly Castro of Remezcla
Flor Leibaschoff, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, and Aldo Quevedo, CEO and Creative Chairman of BeautifulBeast, unveiled the concept for the third installment they are creating this year for one of their earliest clients, the Colon Cancer Coalition.
First was the award-winning Mission to Uranus campaign, an awareness and colonoscopy initiative, according to Quevedo. This was followed by Crappy Symptoms, a controversial effort employing humor and provocative content to target young people (millennials and Gen Z) for early disease detection. The campaign utilized the vulgar term for fecal matter: “So every time you go to the bathroom, pay attention to what’s happening. If you notice anything unusual, talk to a doctor.” The latest campaign, currently in development, explores the concept of inherited health risks, such as colon cancer, which is particularly prevalent among Latinos and families with a history of the disease.
Leibaschoff and Quevedo discussed this campaign during an HMC webinar titled “Winning Creative Ingenuity Gold: BeautifulBeast/Colon Cancer Coalition Campaign.” Moderated by Jemilly Castro, VP of Strategy at Remezcla, the meeting centered on the case study about the Crappy Symptoms campaign.
This campaign is deeply rooted in contemporary Hispanic culture, transforming a stale stereotype into a groundbreaking on-air message. By sidestepping censorship, the campaign boldly declares that “talking openly about bowel movements saves lives.” Ultimately, it serves as a powerful testament to how creativity and humor can be harnessed to raise awareness about crucial health issues and inspire positive behavioral shifts.
Given that colon cancer is the second most common cancer among Latinos, is increasing in prevalence, and affects young people, the coalition aimed to heighten awareness of its symptoms and ensure that a younger audience received this information. To compound the issue, insurance companies do not cover these screenings for younger individuals. “We had to be bold in talking about sh**,” they emphasized.
In fact, this was the core challenge they faced. Despite the client’s enthusiasm for a direct approach, and the relative ease of obscuring the word digitally, they devised a clever workaround. By using a Latino accent while speaking English, they managed to say the word without triggering censorship or brand restrictions. “It wasn’t a gratuitous use of the word sh**,” they explained in a case study video, “but about delivering a clear message. We were the first to say ‘shit’ on air, ever.” Interestingly, the Latinx voices behind the campaign were Leibaschoff and Aldo Quevedo themselves.
“Digging and thinking we started talking about our accents, it’s part of our everyday life and how our accents sometimes we’re a little bit demeaning, how we felt about them, how they were perceived negatively for a long time. But today, actually it was a superpower that we could use for a positive thing and to leverage it in a way to kind of hack the system, so we took advantage of that, said Leibaschoff.
Another critical filter for the campaign was testing the radio components and videos to assess their shareability. “If the answer was no, we wouldn’t proceed,” Quevedo explained. “I hesitate to use the term ‘viral’ because it’s overused, but generating significant buzz was essential for our target audience, millennials. While millennials were our primary focus, we understood that cultural trends often originate with Generation Z.”
They also explored alternative approaches by monitoring social media for instances of the censored word, similar to Jimmy Kimmel’s strategy after the Oscars incident. “While developing the general market campaign, we drew inspiration from Jimmy Kimmel and implemented a video sound design that subtly conveyed the word. We also collaborated with influencers known for their outspoken criticism, leveraging their personalities to amplify our message,” Leibaschoff explained. “It was a 360, holistic effort to encourage open conversation, looking into the toilet and realizing about the symptoms because at the end of the day we wanted those results to help us save lives.”
They also looked at other alternatives by monitoring social media to see who was using the censored word, as Jimmy Kimmel did after an Oscars standoff. “When we were doing the general market campaign, thinking about Jimmy Kimmel and all that, we were able to get it going by doing kind of a video sound design, you could really hear it. We were talking about it and we were using influencers who were talking really bad about others and we leveraged those personalities to spread the message as well,” Leibaschoff said. “So it was a 360-degree, holistic effort, to get people talking about it, looking into the toilet and noticing the symptoms, because at the end of the day we wanted those results, which will help us save lives.”
The campaign results showed a 98% completion rate and a 20% increase in searches for colon cancer symptoms.
Watch the webinar here
