Gold
Creative Strategy
Beauty & Well-being

Libresse was the first brand to show red blood and start normalising periods with ‘Blood Normal’. It put Libresse on the map culturally, and in 7 years, propelled it from #6 to #4 globally and from a €600m to a €1bn brand. But there’s been no resting on our laurels. The cultural influence of Libresse over the last 7 years has been such that all the other brands, old and new, have been following suit and replicating the work. This drastic change in the category’s representation of periods was always part of the plan to normalise periods so women+ can all ‘Live Fearless’ - Libresse’s brand platform. P&G and Kimberly-Clark dominate the category globally with their huge media budgets. Libresse simply can’t compete on media spend. Our new challenge was to continue to cut through, but in a new way, despite a lower media spend – using message, not media, firepower.

Given the repeated success of ‘Live Fearless’ over the years, the company had a nice but additional challenge. In 2016 only 6 markets asked to run the campaign. In 2024 that number was 30+. These were markets as diverse as the UK, Jordan, Australia, France, Colombia and Sweden.

Libresse had to deliver yet another idea that would be original enough to cut through and universally profound enough to be relatable everywhere.

Where do you go after 7 years of taboo-busting? As we dug deeper for insights across our markets, one truth stood out: while Libresse had been first to show periods in their bloody reality, the next barrier was even more fundamental — the shocking lack of education around them. Our research revealed that 6 in 10 girls+ and women+ felt unprepared for periods and wished they’d been taught more. In a culture where periods are routinely dismissed — by schools, media, even the femcare industry — we saw a powerful opportunity: to be the brand that truly understood women+’s real period experiences. ‘Never Just A Period’ is a symphony of women+’s unsettling experiences, from first period drops to last perimenopause clots, from confusing tampon manuals to painful coil insertion, post-pill limbo to weird discharge.

We started the conversation with a powerful film asking: ‘What do you wish you’d been told?’, complemented it with social content showing how Libresse products better understand women+’s needs, and provided arresting research to stimulate important conversations. The new campaign has driven renewed success for Libresse. Business Objective: To take an unfair share of the category by growing faster than our bigger competitors. Despite being significantly outspent, Essity’s femcare business is growing faster than P&G and Kimberly-Clark. Communications Objective: To strengthen perceptions of Libresse by demonstrating that we understand women+ deeply. Using two key launch markets as examples, we can see from the tracking that brand perceptions have improved on fundamental measures such as ‘Is a brave brand that breaks taboos’ by 38% and 14% and ‘Is a brand that impacts society positively’ by 22% and 3.5%. Social tracking confirms the campaign makes women+ ‘feel seen’ with thousands of comments like: “THIS IS INCREDIBLE… It’s a very deep feeling to be acknowledged. Thank you.”

We set out to show women+ we understood the reality of periods. Proving we did paid off: 67% of women+ who saw the campaign said they were now more likely to buy Libresse. Despite being significantly outspent, Essity’s femcare business is now worth over €1bn, growing well ahead of P&G and Kimberly-Clark achieving the Business Objective. We also met our Communications Objective: globally, Libresse is now more strongly associated with ‘honest’ conversations about periods. In key launch markets, brand perceptions of a ‘brave brand that breaks taboos’ (UK +38%, Sweden +14%) and ‘impacts society positively’ (UK +22%, Sweden +3.5%) soared. While ads category often spark cynicism, our campaign broke through: 41% of #NeverJustAPeriod comments actively expressed gratitude. Comments like “I cried... it’s a deep feeling to be acknowledged. Thank you” reflected how understood women+ felt after seeing our campaign, a powerful shift.