This October, Joe Public London launched Street Nipples for Breast Cancer UK, a campaign that transformed ordinary pavement studs across London, Manchester and Edinburgh into nipple artworks. The aim was not spectacle but subtlety.
Created using eco-friendly reverse graffiti, each piece was pressure washed into dirty pavements with the message:
“If you don’t look for it, you could miss it.”
The idea mirrors its meaning. Like the studs themselves, the early signs of breast cancer are easy to overlook. The campaign’s fading stencils, clean today and gone tomorrow, embody that fleeting visibility.
Making the invisible visible
It began with a simple question.
“We were standing on a street corner wondering what those little studs were actually for. That was the spark,” said Caroline Bergh, Creative Director at Joe Public. “It felt like the perfect metaphor: if you don’t look for it, you could miss it.”
That moment of curiosity became an act of cultural noticing, turning an overlooked piece of infrastructure into a national conversation.
With zero media spend and a limited production budget, Street Nipples has achieved impressive visibility so far. An interactive map guides the public to around 50 installations across the three cities, supported by a social competition that encourages people to share their finds under #StreetNipples.
A campaign that fades to stay
Reverse graffiti is designed to fade. It is a medium built on disappearance, and that temporality gives Street Nipples its emotional weight.
As PRmoment observed, “this campaign is a perfect example of how a creative execution, using messages that gradually fade, can amplify the impact of your point.”
The fading imagery reflects the urgency of early detection. Because if you do not check, you could miss something crucial.
“We know that at least 30 percent of breast-cancer cases are preventable, but for those that are not, it is vital to know the signs,” said Thalie Martini, CEO of Breast Cancer UK. “This campaign takes that message to the street, quite literally, and does it in a way that gets people talking.”
According to Breast Cancer UK, breast cancer affects around one in seven women in the UK during their lifetime. It is a statistic that makes the campaign’s quiet insistence hit harder.
Purpose without performance
The idea caught attention well beyond the pavements. In total, Street Nipples generated 26 pieces of media coverage, reaching more than 55 million people, alongside 17 social posts that amassed over 3.2 million impressions. For a campaign with no media spend, its cultural footprint spoke volumes.
Delivered through Joe Public’s Take-Away model, a pricing framework for fast-turnaround projects within defined budgets, the campaign demonstrates that impact does not depend on investment.
“Whether you order Rare, Medium or Well Done, it is always done well,” added Claudi Potter, Co-founder and Executive Creative Director.
In a space where purpose work can risk preaching, Street Nipples achieves something rarer: purpose without performance. There are no slogans or spectacles, only an idea that meets people where they already are.
It is the kind of creative courage the industry needs more of. A small act with a large consequence, and proof that creativity’s real currency is not reach, but noticeability.
In an age when cause marketing often feels algorithmic, Joe Public’s intervention reminds us that relevance does not require spectacle. It requires proximity, humanity and the courage to point down instead of up.
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