JWT’s female creatives pull some Kotex punch

"I just started bleeding & I feel fantastic!" Typical image used for feminine hygiene products.

JWT’s latest campaign for Kotex works for all the reasons the media have spelled out. But for many women it will work simply because it was created by women, and therefore makes sense. It’s not that the ads are even that hilarious – JWT could have pushed the humor further – but the campaign is market focused, clever, relevant and fresh.

In the close to 33 years of my mensturating life, advertising agencies have strangely rationalized that clients selling tampons and pads – conservatively categorized as ‘personal hygiene’  products –  would do just as well to be communicated by the half of the population who don’t buy (or rarely) buy these products, who don’t use them and wouldn’t know how to put one up ‘there’, who actually don’t have vaginas and who probably wouldn’t know how to take the packaging off either a tampon or pad if asked. Advertising execs are a strangle lot indeed!

Tampon and menstral pad advertising has, up until now, been pretty much dreamed up to suit male fantasies or could it be just plain stupidity – it’s not clear which.

Kotex U: old print ad

Gone are those bleedin’ days when we women should feel we are fabulously feminine which actually = getting onto the third day with four to go – bloated, cramping and craving chocolate; OR that our hormones should be stable which actually = “I’m going to kill the kids and ask for a divorce tomorrow, I can’t live like this anymore”; OR that the wind in our hair and our flowing white gown trailing behind us in real life means - “My roots are growing out and I can’t fit into the cocktail dress for Friday’s awards night”, all the while we’re straddled on a handsome black stallion with stretches of warm sand tempting perfect intimacy, comfort and happiness which = “No, I’m not up for it, how could you possibly think I would be? I just really need to sleep.”

So, hats off to Kotex for moving on. I can now relate to Kotex as a brand. It speaks to me, it has a sense of humor, it understands my experience and it can provide me with a decent product when I need it. What more could a girl need?

Maybe Kotex should be the new generic word for tampon from now on. I know I’m going to start using it.

If  you haven’t seen the TV spot yet, follow the link below -

Kotex TV campaign

Branding spaces = emotional living

Dental Spa KU64, Berlin.

“Have you had a good day?” – the bottom line is that your answer to this question rests entirely on your emotional and physical experiences since waking up this morning. Whether it be your work setting, a trip to the dentist, the production you saw last night, even your train ride home. The state of being awake is your body’s involuntary experience with the world. It moves through spaces, inside and out, in parallel with your emotional reality. Physically and emotionally you are intrinsically bound.

Sears Sky deck, Chicago

Trendwatching.com talks about experiences and storytelling in relation to status, and our quest for status as consumers. The ever growing trend towards individuality whereby we seek experiences (in many forms) that others haven’t, is the means by which we achieve status. However, achieving status through difference is extremely hard to find. Just when you think your new wardrobe purchase will set you apart, someone turns up wearing the same; just when you think you’re on top of the latest news, someone will disappoint you by giving you a more updated version, and just when you think you’re blogging about something new, you get a damn email alert beating you to it.

How is this relevant to emotional spaces? Two of the most talked about ‘platforms’ in marketing today are social networking where emotional connections are made with ourselves and others, and experiential marketing where we experience a brand physically, leading to an emotional response. For marketing to arrive at this junction where the relationship between our emotional and physical worlds are recognized is one of the most significant developments in the commerical world. The images shown intend to illustrate how our physical experiences are inseparable to our emotional lives, and therefore how brand perceptions can be formed based on these.

We have a mutually beneficial relationship with brands so let’s all look forward to having more meaningful brand interaction with them to feed our emotional and physical well-being. Brand owners and marketeers, step up that creative gear, please!