Gift Card of Life

Breast cancer, detected in an early stage, has a survival rate of 93%. But in Peru, it´s the second cause of death among women. This is because the public health system is overrun and inefficient, with waiting periods of a year and a half for mammograms, while the private health system is excessively expensive and impossible to pay for most women.

Tottus, one of the leading supermarket chains in the country, took action to protect their most important customers: Peruvian women.

They made mammograms surprisingly accessible and affordable through a familiar vehicle: a gift card that you can buy in a supermarket. The “Gift of Life” card gave women access to a quality mammogram at private clinic at an 80% discount. We made sure that the gift cards were on display on supermarket shelves just like any product. So, for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or, Christmas, shoppers had a “life-saving” alternative to the usual chocolates, flowers and perfume. After receiving or purchasing the card, women only need to scan a code to immediately schedule their appointments, without the wait they’d face in the public healthcare system.

Truth Well Told: Tottus’ innovation leveraged insight about typical shopping habits to circumvent an inadequate public healthcare system and make an important women’s health service as easy as buying sugar, rice or milk at the grocery store. The idea led to a 300% increase of the number of mammograms.