Cherries

In Slovakia, seven out of ten women aged 45 to 74 skip a free mammogram. The barrier is not information, it is shame. Many women simply do not want anyone touching their breasts, not even a doctor.

That exact resistance was already written into one of the country's best known songs. "Čerešne" (Cherries), written by Milan Lasica, composed by Jaroslav Filip and made famous by Hana Hegerova, is a chanson about a girl guarding her body from boys' hands. Every Slovak generation knows its line: nobody was allowed to touch my cherries.

Novartis turned that line inside out. The song was re-recorded by women who had been through breast cancer themselves. In their voices, the same lyric stopped meaning protection and started meaning permission: let a mammogram touch your cherries. A single melody carried forty years of modesty and then dismantled it.

Two cherries hanging from one stem, bent into the shape of an awareness ribbon, became the campaign's symbol and led leading women to a landing page, where they could find their nearest certified screening centre.

Screenings at certified centres rose by 49%. 86% of women said they were willing to book a mammogram, the highest number ever recorded in Slovakia, and with 29.1% spontaneous recall against 7.9% for the next best known campaign, Cherries became the top of mind breast cancer prevention campaign in the country.