End Period Poverty

Always raises awareness about period poverty around the world and wanted to bring their global #EndPeriodPoverty movement to Belgium.

Insights:

Brand DNA: Always empowers young girls and women to be confident at every stage of their life and enables access to safe and comfortable period protection for everyone.

Audience insight: The majority of Belgians do not find it difficult to talk about menstruation with those around them. On the other hand, women who do not have enough money to buy menstrual protection prefer to keep it to themselves, or don’t even dare to ask others for pads or tampons, due to shame.

Truth of the moment: Period poverty exacerbates school drop-out levels and social exclusion, as many young Belgians miss classes because they cannot buy period products.

Strategic intent:

We needed a credible partner that could be the voice for women living in period poverty, educate everyone on the social impact of the issue, and most of all: normalize the act of asking for free products and offering help.

We used the decreasing taboo around menstruation to our advantage – to break the silence about period poverty, with an influencer campaign on Instagram. Instagram is a young and female channel with more than half of its users being women who thrive on relatable, authentic and engaging content.

Creative idea: 

Ketchum recommended BruZelle as the ideal local partner to add action and meaning to this campaign, taking it beyond lip-service to the subject.

We started the conversation around period poverty through the media, creating PR opportunities for Always to position itself and deliver its key messages. We then invited prominent influencer-ambassadors Flo Windey and Emilie Liegeois to visit BruZelle, giving them the opportunity to ask questions, and allowing Bruzelle to open the debate while also addressing directly the needs of people in period poverty with a call for support – with direct access to the fanbase of both influencers.

To broaden the reach, we spread the hashtags #NonALaPrécaritéMenstruelle and #StopMenstruatieArmoede on social media through collaborations with other Belgian influencers. They showed a photo of “real” period pads alongside toilet paper or socks – items often used as an alternative for period product by people in period poverty. Using #ThisIsNotAPad and #CeciN’estPasUneServiette, the influencers educated followers on period poverty, mentioning the Always instore action.

Results:

The campaign generated positive and compelling stories in media, breaking the taboo around period poverty and positioning Always as a social brand that cares about society. We generated an earned media reach of 3.888.894 and an influencer reach of 438.923 with 6,4% engagement rate.

530.000 donations were made to BruZelle and Goods to Give. For context, this milestone for donations to BruZelle is usually only met in a ‘normal’ year after 6 months.