Decommoditizing a household product to cure cervical cancer

CHALLENGE

Female Cancer Foundation (FCF) wanted to raise awareness for their see & treat method to detect the earliest stages of cervical cancer with women in developing countries, enabling treatment when it is most likely to be successful. No expensive machines or medicines are needed, just plain, simple, affordable household vinegar. By raising awareness, FCF wanted to create more funding and recruit volunteers. Their biggest challenge: FCF has no production or media-budget.

INSIGHT

Cervical cancer is the world’s deadliest disease among women, while this can easily be prevented with a household product: vinegar!

SOLUTION

How to get a medical solution out of the science bubble and reach the broad audience? We transformed the unobtrusive cheap household vinegar and added the magic that vinegar can mean for women to the product. The medium became the message, as we introduced a bottle as precious as the liquid itself: Miracle Life Saving Vinegar. We created FCF’s own vinegar brand, with a distinguishing bottle design that would tell the story. The name ‘Miracle’ and explicit feminine bottle shape helped us to communicate the life-saving value of this liquid is. The bottle became a fundraising mechanism. We raised the average price of €0,50 to €1,50. For every bottle sold €1 was donated to FCF.

Getting a bottle produced and distributed without any budget required a lot of perseverance. It took us three years to get there, persuading dozens of stakeholders, bottle producers and managers of stores, supply chains and categories. Ultimately, we managed to partner with the Netherlands’ largest grocery chain, Albert Heijn, where our bottle received a prominent spot in 1,000 supermarkets. This helped us reach millions of people in an extremely short time.

RESULT

We sold all 30,000 bottles of Miracle Vinegar. Yes, that means 3,000 lives saved. But it’s not just about earning €30.000 euro with those 30.000 bottles. Besides that, we generated a lot of PR and visibility by bringing a subject far away from home into daily life, with a very everyday product. The simplicity and storytelling power of the idea was picked up by ambassadors like popular Dutch talk show host Eva Jinek, providing her with a tangible tool to bring the miraculous story to life in talk shows and news media