PNF - Movember

Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer and depression.

Mo Bros, supported by their Mo Sistas, start Movember (November 1st) clean shaven and then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache. During Movember, each Mo Bro effectively becomes a walking billboard for men’s health and, via their Mo, raises essential funds and awareness for Movember’s men’s health partners — The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue — the national depression initiative. At the end of Movember, a series of Gala Partés are held to thank Mo Bros and Sistas for their support and fund raising efforts.

Movember started in 2003 amongst a group of friends over a quiet beer at a Melbourne pub. Since this time, Movember has continued to grow each year, both in terms of participation numbers and funds raised. In its first year, 30 Mo Bros took part in Movember and last year, in Australia alone, 125,000 Mo Bro & Sistas got on board, raising more than $8million for each of Movember’s men’s health partners.

This Professional Network Forum covered how Movember has changed the face of mens health, engaged with the importance of creativity, how continuing to be creative to keep up with the times is so important, what lies ahead and the challenges for Movember.

Luke Slattery co-founded Movember with fellow Director Travis Garone in 2003.  An expert on branding and with extensive contacts within the fashion and lifestyle sectors, Slattery is today responsible for the development and running of Movember’s Australian and NZ campaigns. Overseas he works with each country manager to help them form the right decisions in their respective territory so that Movember stays true to its origins whilst growing with a local feel. 

Slattery’s career highlights have all been experienced whilst working on Movember.  In the early days it was being voted in the Top 10 parties of the year by the social pages in Melbourne and Sydney, to now knowing via research that Movember is actually improving men’s lives by becoming the catalyst for change.

Movember has given Slattery the chance to channel everything he knows into one single project. Always creative and looking for something new, prior to Movember, Slattery used to spend time with friends coming up with ideas, concepts and plans that never really came to fruition. Some got shelved as a result of Movember taking off and others Slattery believes would have never got off the ground anyway. So for Slattery, to be part of creating Movember from the beginning to continually reinterpreting its direction and what it stands for has been a very proud achievement.

 Movember Audio  Click to download the audiocast of this event

Professional Network Forum - Photo Gallery