As *ahem* ladies products adverts go, well, they’re typically nothing like what it’s really like when one’s little friend called Red comes to visit each month.
Boys, let me educate you, contrary to what most of the advertising industry is showing you on television, no we don’t wear yoga and spandex for a week, no we don’t want to gallop for glee and ride horses along the beach, no we don’t feel like donning a red dress and going salsa dancing and most certainly not do we want to fly seven feet in the air in skimpy cheerleading uniforms doing tricks.
Which is precisely why these new adverts (both traditional print and made for television) from Kotex are actually pretty cool. They are marketing the products by parodying what was typical in the past.
The campaign is called The U and it’s aimed at females 14 to 21.
If I’m not mistaken the American version of the campaign is produced by JWT and the European version is produced by The Brand Factory (if you know the answer to this, please let me know!) The European advertisements have been running for about two years and the American ones are scheduled to make their debut very soon (towards the end of March 2010 to be exact.)
If you’re interested you can visit the website here.
It’s designed by Organic, which is part of the Omnicom Group. When you visit the website, viewers are encouraged to sign a “Declaration of Real Talk” which is a vow to defy the norms of society that discourage women (and men) speaking about women’s health and body issues publicly.
For every person that signs, Kotex has said it will donate $1 to Girls for a Change, a non-profit organization from California that pair urban middle school and high school girls with professional women in order to help, nurture and encourage social change.
I don’t know a lot about this campaign, but from the little bits and pieces I’ve been hearing about it — I think it’s pretty rad and I hope it’s a huge success!
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Sasha Muradali runs the ‘Little Pink Book’ . She holds a B.S. in Public Relations from the University of Florida with a minor in Dance (’07) and an M.A. in International Administration from the University of Miami (’08). She loves Twitter and all things social media, so you should find her @SashaHalima or get a copy of the ‘Little Pink Book’ delivered to your Kindle.
Copyright © 2009-2010 Sasha H. Muradali. All Rights Reserved.
