DiagnostiCookies

We turned Brazilians’ eternal love for cookies into a way to spot cancerous moles and save lives.

Brazil has the highest rate of solar radiation in the world. On top of that, over 70 million Brazilians work under the sun all year long. It’s not surprising that skin cancer is the most common cancer in Brazil, with melanoma causing 75% of skin cancer deaths. When we noticed that a melanoma mole looks like a cookie, we decided to leverage Brazilians’ love for cookies with 'DiagnostiCookies' – a simple guide to identify melanoma and save lives.

Melanoma is the most aggressive skin cancer, but it's also the most treatable with an early diagnosis. DiagnostiCookies is an easy way to teach people how to examine their skin so they can detect melanoma and seek treatment, which can help prevent 99% of melanoma deaths.

Dr. Ligiane Pupo

Horaios Dermatology Clinic

In Brazil, where over 70 million Brazilians work out in the sun, we needed a simple way to help people identify melanoma with their own eyes and give them the knowledge to identify odd moles effectively.

Ever noticed that a melanoma mole looks like a cookie? Since Brazilians love cookies, which are sold everywhere, from almost every coffee shop to cookie kiosks, we sought to combine Brazilians' love of cookies with the need to educate them on the importance of early melanoma detection.

'DiagnostiCookies' makes it easy to identify melanoma. In each box, you see a side-by-side comparison of cookies resembling healthy moles and ones that resemble melanoma moles, showing the differences in size, color, shape, and texture. Melanoma moles might have uneven borders, be bigger than six millimeters, be asymmetrical, have a variety of colors, or evolve their characteristics over time.

The box also comes with a guide to identify these signs and motivate people to do a visual skin cancer screening on themselves, their friends, and loved ones. The guide also explains that if a mole changes characteristics, it could be a sign of malignant transformation and to seek medical consultation.

The idea was launched on social media and almost immediately became a hit, garnering 60 million views in less than 24 hours. Then the impossible happened. With no paid media, more than a dozen Brazilian celebrities and even a CNN reporter showed their support for the campaign online. One was a famous TV host, Sabrina Sato, with 31.5 million followers, and the other was a famous singer named Simaria with 27.9 million followers. These massive levels of engagement helped drive a 320% increase in clinic website views.