ABOUT

Concept

What would the world look like if women+* had life-changing access to information about their health?

This is the question that Libresse asked. The brand is known for pioneering, taboo-breaking work (they were the first brand to ever feature red period blood in advertising with their #Bloodnormal campaign) and their commitment to progressive, change-driving communications has not wavered. They want to break down cultural taboos and stereotypes to eradicate shame around women+’s intimate experiences and create a more understanding, inclusive world.

The world we live in is not an equal one.

Menstrual and sexual education is still restricted across many cultures, and it's estimated that 500 million people worldwide experience period poverty every month due to financial constraints, feelings of shame, or a lack of menstrual education.

We wanted to change that by useful creating content in 46 Libresse markets, focusing on the questions we knew people were asking about their V-Zone (that’s everything to do with your vagina, vulva and the V-shaped front of your body that you can see). We used search data to find the questions, and our own intimate knowledge on the subject to answer taboo, period and health-related questions. This content was accessed from Google, via mobile, from a source people can trust. Written in a way anyone would understand, with beautiful imagery that reflected our audience right back at them – real women+, with different body shapes, skin colours and hair textures.

*By adopting the term ‘women+’, we are striving to include anyone and everyone who uses our products. It doesn’t detract from those who already identified with the term ‘women’, but the addition of the ‘+’ sign is intended to capture the full range of people who use our products beyond just self-identifying women.

Execution

Our approach created powerful editorial content at scale, backed by our multi-language research and local taboo insights. We undertook the mammoth task of creating, translating and localising content. This allowed us to publish across 46 Libresse markets and make this life-changing information accessible to all.

But how did we get there?

1. We looked at search data around menstrual health topics, which we transcreated from English into the 14 languages across the Libresse key target markets. This helped us understand what topics we needed to cover and in how much detail. No taboo was left unturned: period sex, after-birth discharge, period blood, vulvas, menopause symptoms, Female Genital Mutilation, period poverty and beyond!

2. Worked with our local agency teams to get deeper insight into local nuances. Our key markets are spread across four continents, with some countries holding more conservative views than others. Local teams’ knowledge and research allowed us to recognise market-specific gaps, address these barriers with sensitivity and discover new questions to answer.

3. Wrote global guidelines that were on brand and accessible, no matter the reader. We knew dry medical explanations wouldn’t work – we needed a tone of voice that reflects our taboo-breaking brand attitude and engages our audience. So, we developed a Written Content Playbook from scratch. Within it: a treasure trove of taboo-breaking tone of voice tips and tricks, a writing style usage model applicable across all our target languages, and a sensitivity funnel and flow chart to ensure we address topics with the right level of care and empathy.

4. Created optimised content. We followed SEO best practice to create all pieces of content from the ground up, using our research and global Written Content Playbook to ensure that they worked across multiple markets. We interlinked between families of similar content and supported Libresse’s growing product ranges, including the release of sustainable period underwear.

5. Designed imagery that reflects a wide variety of our audience of women+. We wanted to represent real bodies, stretch marks, acne, blood clots and all. But we struggled to find imagery that was as diverse as the Libresse brand. So, we made our own. We developed visual storytelling guidelines, following the brand colour pallet featuring shades of pink and purple, with red strictly used to illustrate blood and heighten the impact. We produced original imagery showcasing a diverse range of body shapes, ages, abilities, skin colours and hair textures that reflect our global audience.

6. Mobile first approach. In cultures where menstruation and other taboo topics are not talked about openly, women+ can feel embarrassed to seek help and advice from family, friends, and even medical professionals. We wanted to give them the information and reassurance they need. From our research, we found that our audience search intimate questions from their phones, so it was important that we appeared in the places they were looking for answers. We optimised our article pages with a mobile-first approach, thinking about UX, image compression, page speed and accessibility.

All of this was pulled together, reviewed, and uploaded to each market’s website. Every piece of creative was produced with a global mindset, to ensure it would appeal no matter who our readers are, what gender they identify as, where they come from, what they look like or what taboos they deal with.

Results

Our inclusive, digital-first approach led to a record-breaking year of organic results and real-world impact.

We covered a plethora of topics, including articles on stigmatised conditions that aren’t often discussed openly like adenomyosis, vaginismus and endometriosis, which are often under-diagnosed as a result of the taboo. We wrote about everything from the quirks of living with periods like removing blood stains, period poop and getting shooting pains in your bum, to shedding light on sustainable period products, and even talking about how the Covid-19 vaccine can affect the menstrual cycle.

The ongoing success of this project has inspired Libresse to renew the experience with additional markets and articles in 2023, to expand the scope of the project to an even larger global scale, so we can continue to share experiences and break V-Zone taboos worldwide, enabling women+ to live fearless.