Football is one of the most played sports in the world. But, even with such popularity, the gender inequality is still a problem that dominates the fields. Kotex, a brand that believes in women's power, decided to tell a story in a historical year for the sport. During football's most important event, when the whole world's attention was on the six female referees in the competition, Kotex stole the audience with Lea Campos' story, launching a short film based on her struggle against prejudice and misogyny, inspiring new girls to pursue their dreams. Because, period or not, they can.

Kotex believes that, period or not, women can do whatever they want. That’s why Kotex celebrates all the women's achievements. But how could we bring the menstruation topic to the spotlight during the event that Brazil always stops to watch: the World Cup? And more: how to hack the Cup without being an official sponsor of the event or the broadcasters? So, our objectives were to make Kotex one of the most talked about brands during the World Cup, even as a non-sponsor and not having the same budget to invest as the sponsors.

To hack the World Cup and become one of the most talked about brands during the event, we needed to find a subject that connected with the brand's purpose.

So, if Kotex celebrates all the women's achievements, the World Cup 2022 was a milestone: for the first time in history, 6 female referees would participate in a male World Cup. A powerful story that would not only connect with the brand's purpose, but also to get a lot of attention from people and the press.

With that in mind, while other brands would talk about the male players, our strategy

was to talk about female referees and all the women's struggles against stigmas and prejudices in sports, finding a narrative that would catch everybody's attention.

More than an advertising film, we created a short film to tell the untold story of the world's first female referee: Lea Campos. But guess what? She was prohibited from refereeing because she had periods. Based on real facts, we portrayed the difficulties she overcame, like a real argument between her and João Havelange, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation back then. He not only prohibited her from refereeing, using as excuse that the female body was too weak to officiate a male match, but also questioned her: “and what about when you are on your period?”

But Lea never gave up and finally, in 1971, she received an invitation from FIFA to referee a match in Mexico. In the end, she refereed more than 90 matches in her career. Lea’s struggle was the kickoff to other women becoming referees, like the 6 referees in the World Cup 2022.

To bring the mood of Brazil in the 1960s, we worked with precise art direction, using real clothes, furniture, a car and other objects that were time period correct. We also cast an actress that looks like the young Lea, to bring believability to the film. In the dialogue, we used the real words that João Havelange used. All the film direction was done to get out all the emotions and humiliation Lea felt by the prejudice she faced. But also to show how strong she was to overcome it. 'LEA' was released one day before the World Cup started, on November 18, 2022, running until December 2, 2022, becoming one of the most talked about films in Brazil. The work was shown on the Kotex Brazil social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and also impacted people on TikTok, Twitch and Globoplay (The biggest national stream platform).

The film was released a day before the World Cup started and rapidly became a success, even though Kotex was not sponsoring the championship or any Brazilian broadcaster. The film became the 2nd most-viewed World Cup campaign on YouTube and also one of the top 5 most watched videos on the platform during the Cup, with more than 18 million views, ahead of brands like Nike, Adidas, Gatorade, Vivo, and Sadia. Lea's story was so powerful that it became a spontaneous hit, with more than 13M organic views, and 93% of positive mentions. The press covered it all, generating more than R$300 thousand in earned media. In the end, the campaign had more than 70 million impressions.

Football is part of Brazil's culture. And the World Cup is highly anticipated and watched by more than 165 million people in the country. The offices stop, and the bars and streets get crowded. Every Brazilian becomes a fan during the World Cup, even those that are not that much into football. And women are 44% of these football fans. On the other hand, Brazil still has a sexist and patriarchal culture, and football is still seen as a male only sport by a lot of people. Female players and female referees still suffer a lot of prejudice. In this context, bringing stories like Lea’s is important to inspire young girls to fight against stigmas and to show that in football or any other field, women can.