ARCHIVEMottumars Gets Iceland Dancing for Colon Cancer Awareness
"Save Your Ass" is a 2015 Icelandic public service film created by Reykjavík agency Brandenburg for Mottumars and the Icelandic Cancer Society, in which a cast of seventeen well-known Icelandic actors dance together to promote colon cancer awareness among men as part of Iceland's annual March men's health campaign.
Mottumars is Iceland's national men's-cancer-awareness and fundraising initiative, run by the Icelandic Cancer Society. It operates each March as the Icelandic counterpart to the internationally recognised Movember movement, channelling public attention toward cancers that disproportionately affect men. Within that annual platform, the Icelandic Cancer Society and Brandenburg identified colon cancer as the focus for 2015, a disease that remains one of the most preventable yet underscreened among Icelandic men when caught early.
The campaign's single media asset — a 92-second film uploaded to YouTube on March 4, 2015, as documented by the platform's own record — distilled its entire argument into one arresting visual proposition: a large ensemble of recognisable Icelandic public figures abandoning all decorum and dancing with uninhibited energy. The title "Save Your Ass" operates simultaneously as a literal instruction to book a screening and as the comedic hook that made the film shareable across Iceland's compact but highly connected digital landscape. In the United States and across global markets, charity campaigns increasingly lean on celebrity participation to generate earned media; in Iceland, where the pool of nationally recognised faces is intimate and trust in public figures is correspondingly high, the same mechanism carries particular cultural weight. The campaign sits within the Public Interest category and represents Brandenburg's commitment to socially purposeful creative work produced in Reykjavík for a domestic audience with real health stakes.
ARCHIVEMottumars targets men in Iceland, a demographic that health communicators across multiple markets consistently identify as resistant to preventive screening messaging when delivered in a clinical register. Brandenburg's strategic answer was to remove the clinical register entirely and replace it with something men would choose to watch: a choreographed, high-energy ensemble performance built around recognisable Icelandic actors whose participation itself became the news story.
The strategic logic mirrors a broader shift in public health communication, in which campaigns compete not against other awareness efforts but against entertainment. In Iceland, where the population is small and national media reach is concentrated, a film featuring seventeen public figures simultaneously creates a water-cooler moment that a conventional poster or broadcast spot cannot replicate. The Icelandic Cancer Society recognised that Mottumars, as an annual platform, needed a 2015 execution capable of cutting through accumulated awareness fatigue — audiences who had seen prior campaigns needed a genuinely surprising creative decision to re-engage with the colon cancer message.
Internationally, comparable campaigns such as Movember's own celebrity-led activations and the broader genre of cause-marketing films from organisations like Cancer Research UK have demonstrated that entertainment-first formats drive significantly higher organic sharing than didactic approaches, according to coverage in shots.net. In Iceland's specific media environment, as reported by Whatson Is, the "Save Your Ass" film achieved rapid circulation precisely because its cast density and comedic framing made it feel like a cultural event rather than a public information notice. Brandenburg positioned the campaign at the intersection of Mottumars' established March timing and the universal human instinct to watch people dance, creating a piece of public service communication that required no coercion to reach its audience.
Directors Samuel and Gunnar led the creative execution of "Save Your Ass," working with production company Stórveldið to construct a 92-second film that manages tonal precision at every frame, as documented by shots.net and worldvideoads.com. The core challenge was choreographic and casting: assembling seventeen Icelandic actors — including Benedikt Erlingsson and Þorsteinn Bachmann among others documented by worldvideoads.com — and directing them through a unified performance that reads as genuinely joyful rather than obligatory.
Creative director Ragnar Gunnarsson and art director Hrafn Gunnarsson shaped the visual language of the piece, while copywriters Bragi Valdimar Skúlason and Haukur Viðar Alfreðsson supplied the campaign's title and its double-edged verbal wit. Illustrator Þorvaldur Sævar Gunnarsson contributed to the campaign's graphic identity, and producer Hugi Halldórsson managed production logistics across the ensemble shoot. Director of photography Ágúst Jakobsson handled cinematography, capturing the choreography with the energy of a music video rather than the measured restraint typical of public service films. Visual effects and SFX work was delivered by Haukur Karlsson, ensuring the finished film met broadcast-quality standards within the constraints of a nonprofit production budget.
The music — "Hossa Hossa" by Icelandic band Amabadama, as identified by whatson.is — provides the film's rhythmic engine and reinforces its local cultural identity. Choosing an Icelandic track rather than a licensed international hit grounds the campaign firmly within Mottumars' national context, making the film feel like something that belongs to Iceland rather than a global template localised for the market. The result is a piece of craft that earns its entertainment value through specificity: specific faces, specific music, and a specific health message delivered with enough wit that audiences in Iceland chose to share it without being asked.
No verified performance data for "Save Your Ass" is publicly available in the form of confirmed view counts, screening uptake figures, or measured shifts in colon cancer awareness among men in Iceland. What the public record does confirm, as reported by shots.net and whatson.is, is that the film achieved notable circulation within Iceland's media environment following its March 4, 2015 upload to YouTube, consistent with the organic sharing patterns that ensemble-cast public service films typically generate.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several properties associated with effective public health communication. Its single-asset format concentrates creative investment into one high-quality execution rather than diluting resources across multiple touchpoints — an appropriate strategic choice for a nonprofit operating in a small national market like Iceland. The casting of seventeen Icelandic actors creates a network-distribution effect: each participant carries their own audience, multiplying the film's reach without additional paid media spend. The title's wordplay ensures the campaign is memorable and repeatable in conversation, lowering the barrier to word-of-mouth amplification.
The Clapboard Score for "Save Your Ass" is 77 out of 100, reflecting strong creative ambition and cultural specificity within the Icelandic Public Interest category, with structural effectiveness in casting strategy and tonal clarity offsetting the inherent measurement limitations of a single-asset, nonprofit campaign. Brandenburg's decision to treat the Mottumars platform as an entertainment commission rather than a public information exercise represents the kind of strategic reframing that earns creative recognition in the public service category across global award circuits.
"Save Your Ass" is a 2015 Icelandic public service film created by Brandenburg for Mottumars and the Icelandic Cancer Society. The 92-second film features seventeen well-known Icelandic actors dancing to promote colon cancer awareness among men, released in March 2015 as part of Iceland's annual men's health campaign.
Brandenburg, a creative agency based in Reykjavík, Iceland, created the campaign. Brandenburg developed the concept under creative director Ragnar Gunnarsson, with production handled by Stórveldið and direction by the team known as Samuel and Gunnar, as documented by shots.net and worldvideoads.com.
Directors Samuel and Gunnar led the film for production company Stórveldið. The cast comprised seventeen Icelandic public figures and actors, including Benedikt Erlingsson and Þorsteinn Bachmann, as identified by worldvideoads.com, with director of photography Ágúst Jakobsson behind the camera.
Mottumars is Iceland's national men's-cancer-awareness campaign run each March by the Icelandic Cancer Society. It operates as the Icelandic equivalent of the internationally recognised Movember movement, directing public and fundraising attention toward cancers affecting men, including colon cancer as highlighted in the 2015 campaign.
The film uses "Hossa Hossa" by Icelandic band Amabadama, as reported by whatson.is. The choice of a local Icelandic track rather than a licensed international recording grounds the campaign within Iceland's cultural identity and reinforces Mottumars' status as a national rather than globally templated initiative.
"Save Your Ass" received a Clapboard Score of 77 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative ambition, culturally specific casting strategy, and tonal clarity within the Icelandic Public Interest category, recognising Brandenburg's decision to frame a health message as genuine entertainment rather than public information.
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