Bodyform goes large on blood, guts, laughs & confusion of menstruation

Just as magnificent, unpredictable, painful and hilarious as periods themselves, AMV BBDO’s new Bodyform campaign represents menstruation in all its guts and glory. The female-only Greek chorus, the prostrated renaissance women, the huge variety of experiences and the heady pace give a taster of the myriad ways that menstruation curses and blesses your life.

“Never just a period” is directed by Lucy Forbes, who made the excellent Netflix show Eric as well as This is Going to Hurt, a TV series set on a hospital labour ward.

Tanja Grubner, global marketing and communications director at Essity said: “We’ve been challenging toxic stereotypes around periods for almost a decade and while progress has been made, our mission is on-going. Our global taboo tracking helps us shine a light on the topics that matter to women+ across the globe. We support better education for children through more open conversation, so girls+ can have a healthy relationship with periods and their bodies.”

AMV BBDO CCOs Nadja Lossgott and Nicholas Hulley said: “’It’s never just a period’, is the emotional and creative ground zero of thousands and thousands of years of dissonance between what women+ are told about their periods and what they actually experience. Because one thing is for sure. It’s never been ‘just’ a period. And it’s definitely not ‘just’ you.”

There’s a slight sense that the issue about a need for education has been manufactured to fit in with Bodyform’s ongoing “purpose” agenda (statistics cited include “42% of those who menstruate feel the knowledge of their cycle has lots of gaps”) but if you ever want to learn about periods, this ad gives a brilliantly, loud, messy, bloody, entertaining, conversation-starting taster of what might be in store.

MAA creative scale: 8.5