• by Les Luchter , Yesterday

Describing men’s testicles as “one of the last places where left and right meet,” a new social media video posits that this space, rather than President Trump’s planned $400 million White House facility, is “the ballroom that needs funding.”

“Almost 100,000 men are diagnosed with testicular cancer every year,” the video notes as it solicits donations to the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundation (TCAF).

“Fund This Ballroom,” though, is not a TCAF video.

The idea of the campaign took hold about a month ago when Public Inc., an 18-year-old creative/strategy agency that does only “social impact” work, decided that the President’s efforts to obtain ballroom funding amounted to a “zeitgeist” cultural moment it could tap into, co-founder and CEO Phil Haid tells Marketing Daily.

Only then did the agency hit upon the balls idea, “a funny, more interesting way to fund a ballroom that has positive health benefits,” Haid says. 

Public teamed with the Engage for Good platform, which focuses on corporate–nonprofit partnerships, but neither entity succeeded in getting a corporate partner – say, an underwear marketer -- to come onboard.

That didn’t surprise Haid. “This is not an anti-Trump, anti-administration campaign,” he notes, but “right now, people see anything that touches on the political in any way, shape or form as too political. A lot of people are gun-shy when it comes to social issues that could be seen as somehow poking the bear.”

 “Brands need to have a lot more courage,” he adds.

The last step in the campaign’s evolution was teaming with TCAF as donation beneficiary.  But, even in the nonprofit realm, Haid acknowledges, other prostate cancer charities wouldn’t get involved.

The “Fund This Ballroom” video launched last week with postings by Public, Engage for Good and TCAF over a wide range of social channels, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and BlueSky.

Social media outreach will continue for at least a couple of more weeks, Haid says.

The campaign, aiming for prevention awareness as well as donations, hopes to reach millennial and Gen X men, he relates, and also “the women in their lives.”

Even further, Haid elaborates, the campaign is designed to teach an audience across parties -- Republicans, Democrats and independents. “This is not a MAGA issue, it’s not a Democratic issue, it’s an issue for all men, and we felt that humor was a really great way to do it,” he relates. “We did think about creating this little campaign in a way that would make everybody laugh and not play into the decisiveness.”

Response to the video has been very positive so far, Haid says, precisely because the campaign is not “overtly political….If it had a negative tone to it or was really critical of the administration, I don't think we'd be getting the response we are.”