‘Save the Box’ campaign via Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Sydney aims to raise awareness and donations for gynaecological cancer
Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Sydney has launched a unique campaign via an outdoor event yesterday in Martin Place for client ANZGOG (Australia and New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group).
Exactly 1,743 simple cardboard boxes were used to create a huge series of walls and structures, each box representing a death from gynaecological cancer over the previous year. Large billboards were placed nearby, explaining that this ‘box memorial’ was designed to get Australians to open up about a subject the majority of women are embarrassed to talk about. The campaign informed viewers through relevant facts incorporated throughout the entire installation and leaflets distributed by women wearing cardboard boxes, the carefully positioned triangular logo leaving viewers in no doubt as to the subject matter.
To coincide with the event, an original song and video-clip was launched online, depicting a large number of women, many of them cancer survivors, marching and drumming while wearing the boxes. The film finishes with the cast solemnly bowing their heads in memory of those lost to the disease.
Within hours of launch, #savethebox was all over social media, and the video had been viewed by thousands. The cause was also taken up through selfies and social posts by several high-profile stars including Ita Buttrose, Johanna Griggs, Jane Azzopardi, Lavinia Nixon, Jessica Rowe and Annalise Braakensiek, just to name a few.
Media outlets also picked up the story including the ABC, Channel 10, Channel 9, The Daily Telegraph and various radio stations.
95 Comments
I’m scared to comment, so is everyone else….
Out of the box thinking?
Ok Stoner Sloth wasn’t that bad.
I’m not scared to comment. Appalling. Offensive. Shameful. There is just no excuse.
I never thought I’d say this, but I actually ‘just cant’
The only thing more horrific than the stats is this campaign
No What the…
You are shameful. It’s a campaign designed to get people talking about a disease that no one is talking about. And people are talking. Get a life and support a worthy cause instead of being one.
That video is really funny.
I’m guessing it wasn’t intentional.
…without the video :/
This is an incredible campaign! Just what we need to break the silence. Great job Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness!
What an amazing initiative by the ANZGOG and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness team. This is a creative way to convey an important message. It is genius. Kudos to you.
This is a joke right? kinda offensive.
Do women really refer to their vaginas as ‘a box’?
I’ve heard men do that, but never a woman.
No. It’s really offensive to me that my reproductive organs/genitalia is being referred to as “the box”. They aren’t going to get many women talking in the way they aim to by offending them with schoolboy humour when it comes to their body.
All staff email: Please post a positive comment.
Just appalling. I noted their spokesperson on Sunrise squirming to explain what the”box” represented. Her answer was incomprehensible but never mentioned the word vagina. An important issue that should be a lot better served than with a crass pun. Time to grow up Saatchi’s.
It’s not Saatchi – I believe that an gynae oncology group are behind this. Appalling to think they make offensive jokes about the female body
Are you seriously calling my bits a box?! Horrific.
Wolf and Is It Just Me? My concerns exactly Thanks for saying.
Zep
As a woman, I never refer to my vagina or uterus as my ‘box’. And either do the women I’ve spoken to who’ve had hysterectomies. It’s our reproductive organs, not some gross joke or a dick in a box kind of gag. Where are the credits on this? I’d really like to know if it was a male or female creative that came up and approved this, because I don’t know how language like this is meant to resonate with the target audience (or older women who don’t even know the slang term of ‘box’).
P.S. This makes me feel sick.
Australia and New Zealand Gynae Oncology Group are the ones behind this … scary.
The cause is important and I kinda like ‘Save the box’ but the execution… there must of been some kind of research saying women over 40 on Facebook share sappy crap.
The boxes symbolise women parts. But then in the video, the boxes become marching drums and they start beating on them.
Boxes, women’s parts, drums.
I reckon it will work
Box!!! Fnaaaaar Fnaaaaar!
I can only guess this came from an all male creative team lead by a male CD. In over 20 years in the business this has to be the worst thing I have ever seen. Would the culprits who made this offensive dross please stand up.
As a woman this really offends me. This topic is important. Slogans and images that sexualise cancer and reduce women to being a box are not okay
We open on a bunch of women beating their boxes…
I am a guy and I find this ad completely offensive. Please take it down.
Will the agency please put up a list of credits for this? Dying to know who the creatives and production personnel were on the campaign. Even better, who was the planner? And the client that fell for the spiel?
Execution is a bit weird but it’s a strong line. Run any campaign with that and the media would pick it up.
I wish Gruen was still on tv, they’d have a field day with this misguided nonsense.
@FFS your comment is sexist.You should know that after 20 years in the business.
And put your name to this utterly disgraceful work
I think it is a great campaign. Good on them for trying to bring light to a taboo subject. No matter how you say it, you will always get someone who feels appalled or offended. Just shows how effective this is. Well done to the agency team and the client for making the leap. Why diss a client who is willing to step outside of the box?
Fuck you. I’m a male and I would never come up with something as shit as this.
I can only guess your comment has come from years of bitter resentment led by a bitter personality.
If you are a woman you should be offended. Very offended. If you are a man you should be offended. Very offended. This insult on the eyes and ears is the most appalling and disrespectful (towards women) work I have ever seen. It’s degrading and disgusting. I really want to know who’s responsible but it looks like nobody wants to put their hands up. Can’t imagine why… Oh yes, they’ll never work again most likely.
I come for the articles, but I stay for the comments. All the prudes crack me up. Willy! Balls! Hope I don’t reduce anyone to tears from my repulsive language :’)
Mary T….. The fact you can congratulate the agency and client that did this makes me feel sick. Maybe you have been so beaten up by the kind kind of sexist attitudes that are still so alive and well in this business that you’ve come to accept it as normal and therefore okay. It’s not. It’s sick. And everyone involved should own up, pull the ad, and apologise for the madness. Now that would be ‘brave’.
It’s not a taboo subject.
Where on earth did you dig that insight up from.
Cancer is a horrible disease that, thankfully, is getting more exposure and research devoted to it.
Don’t try and defend this utterly misogynistic metaphor for a vagina with brave or groundbreaking work.
I’d love to see what Cindy Gallop would make of this.
Not much I’m guessing…. so well done.
I actually didn’t realise talking about womens diseases was taboo any more and required this kind of rubbish.
That said, despite all the media and attention there is only $100 in the money box.
The creative failed miserably.
Who wrote this? Some tradies who took a time out from catcalling women from the construction site?
ANZGOG, I assume I am your target audience. I have a genetic syndrome that makes me highly prone to gynaecological cancers, but I don’t want a full hysterectomy at my age – that’s the standard Australian guideline for my condition. And despite this, I can assure you I have never and will never refer to my cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes or uterus as my “box”. You’d think I wouldn’t mind insulting them – they could easily kill me. But this ad is the insult. It is humiliating. It is woefully self-absorbed. The ‘insight’ is bullshit, or whatever they used to convince you to buy that line. Whatever sex the creative team was, you’d think they”d have the intelligence to run it past a group of grown women to see if it resonated. So, from your target audience, I can tell you it doesn’t. I feel mocked, actually. Please try again.
@somesuit, agree totally. Yet they still run this campaign on Facebook. I’ll talk about my vagina and other part of my anatomy … taboo? It’s not 1950. This phrase is something Donald Trump would like
Whatever you think about the creative, the fact that only a man would ever refer to a woman’s private parts as a “box” (or, rather, they did a decade ago) is a strategic fail.
Looking at the work – it is poor creative work and the execution is poorly done, overall pretty dire, really sad considering the intention I’m sure was to gather support and action. I do wonder how this type of work gets signed off not only from the agency but from the client – we all in this industry really really live in a bubble – not in the real world if we did we would truly understand people’s emotions for positive action. Again another failed attempt from our industry on a topic that deserves so much better. Please can we all just stop and REALLY think the next time a brief like this comes in and give it the proper creative thinking it deserves. Best @kevinferry
Possibly…no, definitely, the dumbest, most ridiculous pun I’ve seen. I say again…whoa. And who said it’s a taboo subject anymore? And to Mary T, ‘if you’re offended it shows how effective it is’, well someone needs a lesson in advertising – annoying and upsetting people isn’t actually good for a brand. I say again…whoa.
Thank you for your input. I am a female creative and I find this campaign disgusting. Love your words and wish you all the best. This kind of drivel needs to be stopped. It’s offensive and stupid. And I’m being nice.
Offensive to women, men and the industry as a whole.
Well done guys, you’ve just given Cindy Gallop even more reason to bag us all.
Love,
A guy.
With apologies to ‘Baby, Can I Bang your Box?’ – The Toppers (1954) and a Daddy Cool version (1972) and that’s the era where the creatives on this idea should retire.
not funny, neither a strong line, just a mate’s joke. This doesn’t raise the awereness of gynaecological cancer. The only awereness that raises is that Saatchi & Saatchi keeps delivering average work. Yuk…
This campaign is notable for all the wrong reasons.
But if negative publicity is the target then this execution will achieve its aim.
Not sure if it would pass a modern ‘water cooler’ or ‘corridor’ test.
Good Lord. This seems like a young male team who’s taste-meter isn’t yet calibrated to ‘general public’ or at least ‘women’. It’d be very interesting if it turned out to be a young female team. (And I’ve actually seen female teams come up with similar before, though I very much doubt this one.)
I sympathise to some degree that in creating a campaign like this the most difficult problem to overcome is to stand out and get noticed with no budget. So you HAVE to go out there in some way.
To stand out you must to be novel, interesting, fresh – this leads you naturally towards the fringes of what is convention.
There are definately examples of this sort of thing that DO work.They are playful, a bit edgy, they skirt close to the line but manage to stay on the right side of good taste. And these ideas while a bit on the edge are empathetic to the audience.
Of course this isn’t one of those ideas.
I sense that as if trying to compensate for the core idea it’s coated a layer of schmaltz – but you just can’t survive this core idea.
If any approach could ever save something like this it would be to go the opposite way and have an edgy comedian do it. (And even then I doubt it, because ‘box’ just isn’t very funny to women – or men for that matter.)
No doubt though this executional element is making the idea even less congruent which is why it seems so strange and almost like a parody.
C*#nt of an idea
Don’t blame Saatchi & Saatchi mainstream for this.
Saatchi & Saatchi Health Sydney own this one!
A new low for the industry. But on the bright side, at least it’s a ‘martin place activation’ that actually happened. That makes three out of the 87665565 that have been presented.
Although from memory the last one was a massive flash porta loo for a toliet paper brand, no shit.
What difference does it make if a ‘young’ team came up with it, whether they’re male, female or both? No idea ever comes out of an agency without a CD, a bunch of suits and typically a planner approving it.
You can’t be suggesting that an inexperienced creative team managed to sell the idea to the client on their own, have thousands of boxes printed and dropped off in Martin Place, orchestrate and shoot a music video, get in touch with a bunch of Z-grade celebs to take pictures of themselves in the t-shirt, and then send out their own press release, without the involvement of a wider agency team?
If a young team presented it, it should have been rejected immediately by people who are supposed to know better. The fact that it’s made its way through and out of the agency is inexcusable.
This is the sort of misguided, in-your-face, shock-at-any-cost, fuck-the-consequences work I would have done in my heyday!
A good day to release bad news.
Anyone else got a shocker they want to brush under the carpet while this one takes a caning on the blog?
Beatbox.
This campaign is truly offensive.
I would never refer to my snatch as a box.
Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t run with my suggestions: “Help the Hairy Clam,” “Solve the Snatch,” or ” Cure the Quim.”
To @Bon Snott
I completely agree with you. I wasn’t making the point about a young team as an excuse for it. Just pointing out that’s where it probably originated.
I agree it seems incredible it got through the rest of seniors in there.
If, in fact, senior people did it, well, then that’s just the same problem – it’s ultimately the leaders that let is past.
Now it’s a campaign.
Seriously, who the f**k made this? Anyone have the balls to put their hand up and tell the (undoubtedly) funny/crazy story that led this to work getting made?
Even anonymously…I’d kill to know how what you told the client in the creative presentation.
If my vagina was dead, it would be spinning in its grave, but luckily according to some inane earlier commentator I’m over 40 and “female” so I am not bothered by this at all, instead ‘I’m sharing sappy videos on Facebook’. This whole thread is symptomatic of why an ad about cancer of the ‘C’ got presented, bought, went into production and was aired, because a whole bunch of young males with appropriate thought-speak ‘had the balls’ to think this was an opportunity to take the piss. Hence, this truly fuckwit solution to cervical cancer, a response that could only have happened if the creative teamed up with the marketing team from Briscoes and Harvey Norman to present an in-depth picture of the post 40s woman circa the Brady Bunch circa mid last century. Shame on you creative director, planner, researcher, client services, client, production company, director and, yes, creative.
… Cure vagina cancer, slap yours with sticks?
Okayyyyyy.
How could this box of —- get past an intelligent and probably female account service?
It maybe controversial but ticks all the wrong boxes.
One would hope there were a few dissenting voices when this ‘idea’ was pushed forward.
The person(s) behind this work and consequent decision making should be aware to the sensitivities of current global gender discussions .
Remember Woolworth’s ‘Fresh in our memories’ attempt to leverage the deaths of young Australians to sell fruit and veg?
Same scenario…
Commentators above have theorised it was ‘young creative team’. But youth isn’t the problem, empathy and maturity is. And neither is necessarily age-related.
You need to understand how a message is processed and understood by your audience. This means knowing the context, the history, and the hopes/fears/dreams of the people you’re talking to.
In other words, you need to poke your head out of the ivory tower and look around a bit. Get beyond the realm of your own limited experience and think – really think – about what it might be like to live someone else’s life.
Especially when you’re talking about something this personal.
I blame the CD for not supplying the perspective. And the creatives for (I suspect) wanting to make a noise first and a difference second.
With less ‘me’ and more ‘you’ in their thinking, they might have created something that would have genuinely (and lastingly) made a difference.
Pity.
Absolutely horrendous on every level. Ladies, please don’t confuse this crass shit as a brave empowerment message. I’m guessing it started as a joke among some straight out of college male intern creatives, with a CD who was afraid to be seen as conservative and let the bad joke continue all the way to the client. Sounds very English, misogynistic and laddish. The awful lyrics to the terrible track only add to the cringe factor – sounds like a late night piss-take comedy show sketch. Shame on you Saatchi. The worst thing I’ve seen in either hemisphere in decades. Show me the credits!
Im sorry but women are not generally embarrassed to talk about this stuff. Men are.
‘Open the box’? Seriously fuck right off. You’re offensive.
Stoner Sloth wrote this ad. He’s a creative head at Saatchis.
Hey jack – unfair on us legit sloths who smoke creative heads
and hey Old CD Guy, yes you did go the full monty at times
and hola Some Suit (and Supporter), I am with you totally, now and anytime
Zep
The majority of the comments suggest the response this misguided campaign will receive if Saatchi Wellness is foolish enough to waste more money entering it into award shows.
Better to donate the entry fees to ANZGOG and be done with this error of judgement.
What’s that smell?
It’s just another bunch of failed creatives hating on some quality work. I think this will be super effective. It already has 70+ comments, that’s boarder line viral already. You all just just wished someone would talk about your work…. Oh wait, you don’t have anything effective to talk about. Sorry but I think this is great work. #savedthebox
Might have worked better as ‘Coins for C*nts’.
Well at least it is a stronger call to action.
Hope that cardboard gets recycled.
Are the opening lyrics “I’ve been shaving…”?
This is an appalling event/campaign – the last time by genitalia were referred to as a “box” was in the 70’s by a boy asking to stuff it!! Disgusting. Very disgusting.You should all be ashamed and apologise.
I believe members of the Australian gynaecological oncology thought up this. They have a website and a Facebook page. Cancer and women’s body’s being reduced to a crude phrase that only school boys would find funny.
Ever.
It appears that the art director on this viral disaster is either insensitive or ignorant on the origins of the black triangle and its use as a signifier in Nazi death camps.
The cultural misappropriation of this Nazi ‘anti-social elements’ prisoners’s triangle badge mistakenly combined with shots of mass drummers alluding to Leni Riefenstahl’s sequences of Hitler Youth drummers from the Nazi propaganda film ‘Triumph of the Will’ is regrettable.
(Yes, various Lesbian groups use this symbol but not along with marching drummers imagery)
The international response from New York and Europe to this awkward juxtaposition will be interesting.
There’s merchandise! And you can buy the song! Amazing!
‘Really impressed’ I think the word you are groping for is border not boarder, you deeply umimpressive bonehead.
Lynchy,
can you please bump this story back to the top of the blog.
It deserves a second round for those who may have missed it last week.
@Really impressed – you may be really impressed (possibly because it’s your campaign) but the now 80+ comments you mention are mostly unimpressed with the lack of sensitivity and poor judgement of the people involved.
It is a worthy cause that deserved better.
Not only is the wording of the campaign inappropriate, but the use of using a black inverted triangle is in poor taste. The nazis used the black inverted triangle to signify someone put in a concentration camp for anti-social behaviour. The Jews were badged with a star of david, gay men the inverted pink triangle, lesbians and Roma people the inverted black triangle. How in this day and age no one designing the logo knew the significance of this symbol is beyond me…but I’d say the more likely scenario is you just didn’t give a shit.
As an oncologist who deals with women with Gynacological malignancies I am appalled at this campaign. This term is derogatory to all women but specifically the beautiful women whose lives (not reproductive organs) that have been tragically cut short by gynaecological mignancies. The term box is reserved for the most childish and insensitive schoolyard.
Couldn’t agree more
The people responsible for this atrocity
http://thevisualasylum.com/
Remember the name. Stay away.
Absolutely disgusted and appalled that “marketing department” thought this freebie from Saatchi and Saatchi Wellbeing was worth running with. Older women will have absolutely no idea that men refer to women’s vaginas as ‘boxes’. And the fact they’re including cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries under the banner “save the box” beggars belief. Let’s see if public reaction against this demeaning, misguided campaign brings back some dignity for women.
I certainly would not donate a cent to that cause.
Many women I’ve spoke to are equally astounded and appalled and feel ANZGOG should be ashamed of this poor effort.
Anzgog ashamed? More cancer professionals making inappropriate comments to cancer patients
Dear Saatchi ‘Wellness’,
Your Save the Box campaign is pathetic, lazy and dumb.
Not only is it disrespectful to women, it’s disrespectful to the disease itself.
This could only have been dreamt up by some sweat-stained beery hasbeen who hasn’t listened to a woman in years.
Since I encountered your brochure in a local GP’s waiting room, I have asked the opinion of women of all ages – and sexual preferences – and they were unanimous: no woman they knew used the term ‘box’ in that context.
In fact, the only people I have ever heard use the term were leery old Les Pattersons. And that was many many years ago.
It’s not only the kneejerk crassness I object to, it’s the lazy, sniggery lack of imagination. It’s the sort of idea one would have thought of during the briefing – and rejected.
I know you would wag some skiddy ‘facts’ about how successful it has been, but I would like to know what an actual sufferer had to say about it.
Saatchi was once a great agency that prided itself on its empathy with its audience. R.I.P. that agency.
I am now rather embarrassed to append my name…
John Box
Save the box is offensive. Besides being crude, it reduces a woman’s value to being based on her genitalia. No woman I know refers to her reproductive parts as ‘a box’. I believe the blame for this is to go to the Australian Gynaecology oncology group. Shame. Trust people making money from cancer to be so out of touch. When will women stop being objectified and insulted?