"Never Just a Period"

31 July 2024

2 mins 25s

The wondering womb

AMV BBDO’s work for Bodyform is some of the best advertising being made. It’s a strong stance to take, but for any person who menstruates, strength is a lifetime requirement for navigating something they’re often told they’re being overly dramatic about; “just a period”.

Directed by Smuggler’s Lucy Forbes, the brand’s latest ad sets an effectively hyperbolic tone from the outset, courtesy of an on-screen orchestra and a handful of eye-rolling renaissance women. Similarly to #wombstories, it uses a mixed media approach to start conversations, covering the confusion around missing periods after coming off birth control, lack of medical understanding on endometriosis, changes during perimenopause, and other (surprisingly common yet unsurprisingly hush-hush) period concerns.

Since 2017, when the brand’s advertising was the first to depict period blood as red, there’s still been plenty of taboos to break. The ad highlights the widespread body illiteracy that stems from gaps in education around cycles. It asks “what do you wish you’d been told?”, and it’s a fairly safe bet that every person who bleeds will have an answer to this in list form.

UK

Sanitary Protection