Ahead of Testicular Cancer Awareness month in April, Testicular Cancer Canada is getting ballsy with its advertising (literally) with a new campaign encouraging men #LetsTalkBalls.

Created by agency Giants & Gentlemen, the series of ads personify a pair of testicles as talking heads, discussing the ups and downs of living as a pair of balls. It ends with the tagline: “Your balls have a lot to say” as a way to encourage men to check regularly for lumps or irregularities.

Ahead of the annual Holi Festival in India, Reliance General Insurance rolled out a campaign that hopes to raise awareness of a stark truth, in an effort to create a safer festival for women.

Created by Ogilvy & Mather, the ‘#HoliNotHooliganism’ campaign puts the spotlight on an often ignored reality that men take the opportunity to harass, grope and molest women under the guise of colour.

The campaign centres around three print ads that show two images side by side – the first a colourful image of Holi alongside another highlighting the reality which often hides beneath the colour once stripped away.

On these cold Winter days, there’s nothing worse than being stuck at a bus stop in the freezing cold as you watch every other bus on the route come and go while the countdown timer slowly ticks down for your bus to arrive…

Enter Coca-Cola.

While an ice-cold refreshing bottle of Coca-Cola is the last thing on your mind at this particular point in time, commuters in Kazakhstan might tell you different.

"I may not look like I suck, but I do" is one of the opening lines to a new PSA ad created by Possible for the Lonely Whale Foundation. Not words you'd expect to come out of a group of celebrities' mouths, the intentionally humourous spot brings attention to the fact that 500 million plastic straws are used every day in the US and often end up in the ocean, polluting the water and causing harm to sealife.  

The statistics are quite staggering. Every year one in four people suffers from some form of mental health problem (Mind). Mental health is also the leading cause of sick leave in the UK, costing the average employer £1,035 per employee per year. Yet the stigma attached to mental health issues mean 95% of employees who call in sick with stress citing a different reason (Time to Change).

Fortunately, attitudes are changing and mental health is increasingly in the public eye. The NHS has pledged to transform mental health services by 2020, with an ambition of putting mental health on an equal footing to physical health. Coupled with celebrities and royals alike speaking out about personal experience, mental health is becoming less and less of a taboo subject.

This is particularly important for younger generations who aren’t growing up in the ‘stiff upper lip’ mind set of eras gone by. Celebrities and Royals, from Lady Gaga to Ryan Reynolds to Stephen Fry to Prince Harry, have all spoken out about their personal struggles (whether depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or one of the many associated illnesses), making themselves role models and helping to normalise the subject. This, in conjunction with increased government spend and campaigning, means we are now, finally, living in the real world with respect to mental health, with its full impact starting to be recognised and taken seriously.

We’ve already looked at the cutting edge of augmented reality, projection mapping, dronevertising, and contactless technology, but there’s one current marketing tool that seems to be even more on the fringes of science fiction than all of these; virtual reality (VR).

Morpheus in the first of the Matrix movies said, “What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can hear, what you can smell, taste and feel, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” We’re already in an age when brands are able to fool our senses using the latest VR devices.

From 2016 onwards, virtual reality is going to become widely available to consumers with the commercial launches of Facebook’s Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive and, the fittingly named, Project Morpheus from Sony.

In the meantime, brands are already starting to use VR in campaigns and here are our five favourite examples;

Hyundai – 4D World rally Championships

Hyundai gave visitors to the World Rally Championship in June 2015 a sensational 4D multi-sensory driving experience. Wearing Oculus Rift glasses, people could see just what it was like to be a co-driver on the track during a race. A motion platform simulated centrifugal forces of up to 0.5g, while specially developed software merged motion and audio data from the 360° race footage.

Riding the media wave of “bad boy” TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson’s suspension by the BBC – due to his alleged punching of a producer who served the wrong food after a long day of on-site shooting, referred to as a “fracas” by the broadcaster – Mars promptly sent him a box of 48 Snickers with the slogan “YOU’RE NOT YOU WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY”.

With a single light-hearted gesture and tweet, Mars taps into the popularity of a show had a weekly audience of 350 million people in 70 countries, and an online petition of over 800,000 followers.

Brands looking to successfully pull off such a stunt need to follow 3 simple rules:

1. Be prepared for the unexpected, to leverage relevant events around the world as they happen.
2. Stay 100% consistent with your brand values, tone and message.
3. Have deep understanding of local culture,  to join the conversation at the with the right twist at the right time.

For the full story, read here.

For a conversation about how Textappeal Global Social Media Solutions can help your brand, email Sergio at 

Whiskas’ new hilarious cat fail video carries an important message…

Whiskas and WWF have partnered to launch a new online video campaign, created by AMV BBDO, which uses real life YouTube footage of cats doing silly things but still coming out unscathed. But the real hard hitting message comes at the end, drawing attention to the plight of tigers in the world – as few as 3,200 tigers remain in the wild.

#9lives focuses on the message that whilst domestic cats may have nine lives, tigers in the wild have just one. The campaign highlights the need for donations to help double tiger numbers within your own cat’s lifetime. Whiskas has pledged to match any donations made.