Libresse is a feminine care brand that believes in creating a world where women can live the life they want, by breaking V-Zone (female reproductive system) taboos.

The brief from the brand therefore was how do we get the women of Malaysia (a highly conservative Muslim country) to be open about understanding and speaking about their V-Zones without fear of being stigmatised?

The objective of doing so would be a progressive Muslim country where the diverse women (and men) of Malaysia would stop period shaming one another and break V-Zone taboos and acknowledge it as a biologically natural part of being a woman.

The idea was to get all Malaysian women, be it Malay, Chinese or Indian, to really “look” at themselves and to get to “Know Your V” like it was someone they just met, and ultimately appreciate...for better or worse.

From interviews, women aged 18-35 were found to be more than happy to champion empowerment, but there was much hesitation when it came to personal feminine care. Many were found to have poor sexual health knowledge. An alarming discovery was that 2 in 3 women interviewed had not truly seen their vulva. Even in private, Malaysian women were ashamed to look, let alone understand facts about their own body. Interestingly the ones who did, reported higher levels of self-confidence, and were more proactive in seeking out such knowledge.

This lead to the insight of getting the less informed women to confront the sight of their own vulva as the mental gateway to self-acceptance.

To ease them on this path, we took the approach of normalising two things which were often perceived as shameful. First was to seek information on sexual health. Second was the sight of their own vulva.

The idea was crystalised as a short 60 sec film showcasing real everyday Malaysian women from the 3 main ethnicities bravely “looking” or individually confronting their physical V-Zones in various relatable public and personal situations.

As budgets were constrained and the country was in lock down at the height of when the COVID 19 pandemic was surging earlier this year, the film was released only on the 3 social platforms it has presence in, namely Youtube, Facebook and Instagram.

The film received backlash upon release. Conservatives criticised the brand for pushing the boundaries too far, branding shame and boycott of Libresse’s products. The silver lining was that for every negative remark made, there were double the positive comments and support for women to finally advocate the breaking of V-Zone taboos.

And since the launch of the film, the brand’s Kantar World Panel study dated on October 2020, tracked the brand’s market share had grown by 6.4%, at a time when the pandemic was affecting other brands in the category negatively.

Essity, the holding company for Libresse also performed a study to measure how the values that Libresse attributed to, whereby it is “a brand that helps me feel confident in my social life” and “helps me live my life as I want to” was ranked lower than no.10 in 2016, has now surged to no.2, in 2020.