Health messaging is getting more approachable

Mekanism and Joint Venture have created ‘Colonoscopy Reminder’, an OOH-led awareness campaign and trailer that typifies the modern light-hearted approach to health concerns.

Supporting the documentary André Is an Idiot, which covers André Ricciardi’s terminal battle with colon cancer, the work uses everyday objects that resemble a posterior.

Expect peppers, pumpkins, rocks, doughnuts, and balloons turning a crude visual joke into a serious public-health prompt: i.e get screened.

The idea might be cheeky, but there’s method behind the awkwardness: making those easily avoidable medical conversations impossible to ignore.

As Mekanism’s CEO Jason Harris put it, the campaign turns a personal tragedy into a lifeline, while CCO Tommy Means described it as a way to bridge the gap between “a difficult conversation and a life-saving decision.”

Our take

Weaponising awkwardness has been something of a trope in modern advertising.

Mekanism’s OOH for André Is an Idiot is very reminiscent of Bidetlity’s recent campaign in that it makes some Freudian references in aid of a public-health nudge.

The cancer-awareness message here feels even more disruptive for a typically solemn genre. 

Love it or hate it, you’ll probably talk about it.