Bodyform had a reputation for innovation and a close relationship with women, including legendary 1980s TV ads that celebrated empowerment of women. However, communications in the category are still restrictive – many UK women’s fashion magazines refuse to carry any feminine care advertising, and the content of TV advertising is tightly regulated. How could Bodyform reignite its relationship with women, when outspent and out-traded by the competition?

In October, a member of the public, Richard Neill, posted on Bodyform’s Facebook page accusing the brand of lying about the nature of periods through its advertising. His witty but ultimately critical post received over 20,000 ‘likes’ within just a few days.

Our recommendation was to capitalise on conversation, creating a funny, shareable video with the same tongue-in-cheek humour of Richard’s original post to officially ‘respond’ and lift the lid on the ‘truth about periods’. Hand-in-hand with a brave client, we devised our response.

Within four days we assembled a team and wrote scripts. We acted at speed, filming in our office at the weekend, and posting the response less than a week after the original post.

In the video fictional Bodyform CEO Caroline Williams addressed Richard directly and explained the history of Bodyform’s advertising, saying it had deliberately misled men because they ‘couldn’t handle the truth’.

We amplified the video through paid-for seeding via YouTube and blogs, ensuring the video was easily discoverable at scale.

The video hit an instant vein in popular culture:

• ‘Hi Richard’ and ‘Bodyform’ both trended on Twitter on October 16 (launch day)

• Cultural implications discussed in TV, press and online around world

• Most viewed video in UK, and the most viewed entertainment content in the world on 18th Oct

We drove media value:

• 55+ million impressions delivered across digital, press and radio channels.

• £1.91m in media value.

• Campaign cost of only £25,000 = media value ROI of 75:1.

And we drove key category metrics:

• +19% relevance to women.

• +18% increase in innovation reputation.

• Vitally, purchase intent increased by nearly 50% (at expense of Always).

• Number of women who ‘insist’ on Bodyform has risen by a similar number.

“They have helped challenge and redefine the communication of the entire feminine hygiene category”. Nicola Coronado – SCA Consumer Marketing Director