The charity, which was founded in 2003, encourages men across the world to grow facial hair as a fundraising challenge every November, with hundreds of millions of pounds donated to more than 1,000 to male cancer charities and other good causes. The biggest UK beneficiairy is Prostate Cancer UK.
However, as the charity's then head of marcoms Paul Mitcheson told PRWeek last year, it has been working to become more than just an eye-catching fundraising operation, and start encouraging men to take action to improve their health.
PRWeek revealed earlier in the summer that Mitcheson, now European country director at the charity, had been in discussions with a number of agencies to support this push.
The resultant pitch was won by The Romans, founded by Joe Sinclair and Misha Dhanak in early 2015 with support from ad firm Mother, to handle the brief. Mitcheson said: "We were looking for a hard-hitting, persuasive campaign that retains Movember's sense of humour and The Romans delivered exactly that.
"Too many men die too young – on average four years younger than women – and there is a lot we can do about this by getting people talking about the issues and funding the next wave of groundbreaking projects to address them."
Dhanak said that Movember "embodies what can be accomplished with an amazing idea and a tonne of passion".
She also said the agency was "especially excited about the prospect of shaving our hirsute creative director" - Sinclair normally sports a large beard, but will be taking part in Movember this year and intends to challenge a number of other bearded PR professionals to do the same.
Ketchum continues to work with Movember on a global level.
Other clients won by The Romans to date include Samsung, Spotify and Brewdog. It has been nominated several times at this year's PRWeek UK Awards.
