Libresse/Bodyform is known for its taboo busting adverts, and its latest ad by AMV BDDO (directed by Lucy Forbes at Smuggler) is no exception. 'Never Just a Period' takes us on a whistlestop tour through potentially uncomfortable and unknown areas of women's health, including missed periods, funny smelling discharge, blood clots and getting an IUD/the coil fitted – all things that we are woefully unprepared for due to a lack of education.
As we've come to expect from the brand that brought us Womb Stories and Viva La Vulva, the ad is a far cry from the blue liquid that was present in period product adverts until fairly recently (I first wrote about the problem with period product branding back in 2016). It also has none of the 'your period is embarrassing and should be hidden' vibes of many older adverts. Instead, it's a honest yet often humorous take on the ins and outs of having a period, and of being confused by what's going on. The ad is based on a survey that shows what women go through and the results form part of the campaign (above).
The ad's soundtrack is provided by an all-female orchestra and mixes animation – including screaming vulvas made of balloons – with classical paintings of women and more modern scenes of people dealing with their period. The orchestra also form part of the story – the moment a male doctor says 'it's just a period' to a young girl suffering pain brings a collective sigh from the band.
“The film stages many not talked about, yet not uncommon experiences, like getting a period whilst breastfeeding, periods not coming back for months after stopping contraception, and large clots during perimenopause – all things that we’d have expected if only somebody had told us,” say AMV BDDO creative team Lauren Peters and Augustine Cerf.
“The campaign plays its small part in representing these experiences while also touching on the big systemic and societal issues which stand between women+ and better knowledge about their own bodies. Whether it’s pain being minimised and dismissed in medical contexts and being told it’s ‘just a period’, when it’s always, always so much more.”
My favourite part of the ad is when a young girl showcases a model of the female reproductive organs to a group of friends, and pulls it down to reveal a period gushing out of it. The look of awe on one young boy's face is priceless.
I don't think that the piece has quite the impact of Womb Stories or Viva La Vulva, but perhaps that's due to the taboos Libresse has already taken on.
For more on who's doing it right in this space, see my latest roundup of recent period product branding.
