ClientPERSIL
Services Creative & Strategy, Production, Brand Purpose
For Persil, stains are a sign of growing, learning and living. And period stains are perhaps one of the most important milestones of all. Girls discover their first blood stain at around 12 years old and that marks the beginning of a whole new cycle. One that can last for over 40 years. But besides being one of the most common stains in life, 72% of people who bleed feel embarrassed about them. It’s time to face the toughest stain of all: the taboo.
To wash away the taboo around period stains, we decided to put them front and centre. In partnership with photographer Sophie Ebrard, we shot images of real people bleeding into their underwear. The idea was to put the stains out there in an outdoor campaign. But the ASA and CAP were concerned over the explicit nature of the content and so rejected the campaign. Instead, we hosted an exhibition with the photographs, which led to people opening and sharing their personal stories about blood stains.
Over 15,000 people attended the exhibition, including influencers and opinion leaders and people shared over 4200 stories about menstrual blood stains in reaction to the work. As a result, we took our case back to the ASA and CAP who finally allowed us to run the campaign.
Let’s Wash Away the Taboo reached over 38 million people combining social media, PR and outdoor. And this is just the beginning of Persil’s wider movement to wash away the taboo around period stains.
