If a woman’s abuser finds out she’s trying to leave, her life could be in danger.

We know that women’s media consumption is constantly being monitored by their abusers - especially during the pandemic. So we created a new way to reach them completely discreetly.

The idea of hiding lifesaving information inside of a tampon is a media innovation in itself. Then disguising the tampon as a free direct mail sample goes one step further.

In short, this entire idea was built around a media idea, and putting crucial information in places men would never look.

During the pandemic, domestic violence has increased by 30%. Women are effectively trapped in their homes with their abusers, and the isolation makes it even harder for them to reach out.

Interval House Women’s Shelter wanted to help. But how could we get lifesaving information into women’s hands, when their abusers are watching their every move?

We put lifesaving information in the one place a man would never look… a tampon.

Our specialized, resealable tampons were imprinted with all the information a woman needs to safely leave her abuser, including our crisis line number, signs of abuse, and a checklist of what to bring.

We sent these tampons to women, disguised as samples.

We also sent full boxes directly to nurses, counsellors, and police – people who have contact with women in abusive relationships, even in the midst of Covid-19.

First, we held a strategic round table with counsellors at Interval House who have daily contact with survivors of domestic abuse, to better understand our target.

Through hearing their stories of these women’s experiences, we learned that getting information to them was a matter of life or death.

If an abuser even suspects that a woman is going to leave, violence will escalate.

Knowing how crucial it was to be discreet became a key part of our strategic and creative breakthrough.

It got us to thinking: How and where could we reach these women, knowing that their abusers were following their every move?

In thinking about the places a man won’t look, we came up with the breakthrough idea of printing this lifesaving information onto tampons.

Our call to action was simple: we wanted women to leave abusers, and reach out to Interval House.

We launched this direct portion of this campaign at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, and it has been ongoing.

We mailed the tampons to women in select areas, targeting the neighbourhoods that reported the most cases of domestic abuse, per capita.

We also sent full boxes directly to Interval House’s network of partners - nurses, counsellors, and police – for them to pass on to women they suspected were in abusive relationships.

For every step of this rollout, we took extra precautions to make sure that abusers would never catch on.

Note: A version of this campaign ran pre-Covid, but these direct targeting executions were developed in response to the pandemic.

The success of this campaign depended entirely on getting this lifesaving information into women’s hands, without their abusers ever finding out about it. And it worked.

805% increase in women seeking help

NO impressions

NO PR

NO abuser will ever know