Bodyform Champions Taboo-Busting Early Period Education

The video opens with a shot of a scared young girl getting her first period – Bodyform’s research found that 80% of women and those who menstruate felt unready for their first period (Bodyform, 2024). The ad also underscores the need for early intervention in rewiring attitudes towards periods in younger generations, ending with a young girl teaching her peers (notably including boys) about the menstrual cycle before descending into a lively and unashamed menstruation-themed crafting session.

The ad then touches upon near-universal experiences such as the confusion of inserting a tampon for the first time, deciphering unusual discharge smells, and the dread of a first IUD insertion.

It also aligns with cultural conversations surrounding the neglect of women’s pain by medical professionals. A scene of a male doctor dismissing a woman’s extreme cramps as “just a period” is interspersed with snapshots of historical paintings of women rolling their eyes. This is a reference to the internet meme format of sourcing historical images to depict users’ emotions (see The Brief for American dating app Bumble’s effective use of this meme pre its now infamous ‘celibacy’ fumble). For more on brand initiatives honouring the 50% of women who feel their pain is dismissed due to their gender (Nurofen, 2023), see Nurofen’s ‘See My Pain’ campaign.

Continuing Bodyform’s trajectory of taboo-busting ads, the campaign demonstrates Bodyform rewriting the narrative of its unrealistic 1990s ads of women skydiving and rollerblading while on their period. See our coverage of 2020’s #WombStories in The Brief.