After years of advertising sanitary products in a way that was, well, too sanitary and not real, a young girl has come along and said (literally) everything that has needed to be said for a long time.
The Camp Gyno campaign is for ‘Hello Flo‘, a mail order business designed to send ‘care packages’ of tampons and sanitary pads to young girls so they can be prepared for their first period. The ad centres on a ‘Joan of Arc’ persona, taking the lead on educating her friends about periods. Personally, I’m not sure about her ‘red badge of courage’ line, but they rest is excellent and the ad does normalise something that is, well, perfectly normal, and that is a good thing. It also shows the ‘Camp Gyno’ being proud and passionate about her role in educating her summer camp friends, but also facing reality ‘this is your life now’.
Timed around the the US ‘summer camp’ season currently in full swing, Hello Flo’s founder, Naama Bloom, has also pointed out how, “There are men out there who don’t think this is a very big market, but it’s $8 billion a year in the US.”. Just how 50 per cent of the population isn’t a big market is a curious idea.
The product is simple and genius. The communication has humour, and actually uses the words ‘vagina’, ‘period’ and ‘menstruation’. Progress.
And of all the ads to launch this year, this one is so far ruling the day.
Amy Feldtmann 