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Behind the Work in association withThe Immortal Awards
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How TENA Broke Down the Taboo Around Menopause

05/05/2022
Advertising Agency
London, UK
474
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Senior strategist, Bea Farmelo, and creatives Lauren Peters and Augustine Cerf, from AMV BBDO, speak to LBB’s Zoe Antonov about how TENA’s campaign depicts menopause and female ageing in a beautifully realistic way in their groundbreaking film

When it comes to women’s health, one thing that we can all agree on is that there are a plethora of taboo topics. From completely natural bodily functions that people try to hide in casual everyday conversations to women’s health issues that are neglected by mainstream media and education on them is lacking. All of this reflects on day-to-day interactions that require us to acknowledge the existence of ageing, puberty, women’s bodies and women’s mental health. Even where women’s issues are concerned, for example, advertisements for hair removal or periods, they have often been tampered with to be what is considered prettier or more acceptable to the eyes of the audience - such as hairless legs being shaved to prove the sharpness of a razor, or blue liquid being used instead of anything resembling period blood for ads proving the absorbing functions of pads.

Creative media is slowly but surely taking a turn, pushed by the wider conversation on women’s issues, as well as by women being in positions within industries where they can truly make a difference on how we view these. TENA, Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising Award winner, has launched its new campaign ‘#LastLonelyMenopause’ to get us all talking about one of the things that the media, a lot of the time, pretends to not exist or weaves into narratives that are ultimately used against women.

The annual Diversity in Advertising Awards pushed the ad industry to embrace creative campaigns that are centred around inclusion and, of course, diversity. This year the brief given to adland was to challenge ageism, which TENA have evidently taken on board quite seriously. In collaboration with AMV BBDO, the film follows the story of a mother and daughter, both going through pivotal moments in their womanhood - puberty and menopause. And while puberty gets its glamorous cameos in coming of age movies and books, menopause has been either forgotten or used as proof for women’s inadequacy or used for mockery. This film does quite the opposite - it speaks about menopause openly and frankly, showing all of its downsides, but also the equally beautiful moments that ultimately lead to a woman coming out of it  - not as someone unable to ‘serve their purpose’ any longer - but as the best version of themselves yet. Truthful, raw and beautifully shot, the film is pivotal for the advertising industry in the way it depicts the issue and prompts audiences to really think about what their friends going through menopause are experiencing. 

LBB’s Zoe Antonov spoke to Bea Farmelo, senior strategist at AMV BBDO, Lauren Peters, and Augustine Cerf, both creatives at AMV BBDO, to find out how the campaign tackles female ageism and what it took to create this beautifully executed and much-needed piece of work.






LBB> What was the brief for this campaign and what were the initial ideas around it?


 
Bea> One in three women will experience bladder weakness, but it’s stigmatised to such an extent that it’s barely acknowledged. TENA, the global leading incontinence brand, have made it its mission to tackle the toxic taboos and stereotypes that women face around ageing and their changing bodies. The brief for this campaign was a continuation of that ongoing strategy.

Alongside this, TENA is trying to drive reappraisal of the brand and shed the negative connotations. It’s important that our audience see the brand as modern, progressive and reflective of how they live their life.

 

LBB> What is the central message of the campaign and the main takeaways you hope for audiences to have by the end of it?


 
Bea> For too long, menopause has either been brushed under the carpet, used as the punchline to easy jokes, or spoken about in hushed tones as ‘the change’. A whole life stage reduced to a euphemism. The shame, stigma and fear this negativity creates have prevented open and honest conversation, meaning many are left woefully equipped for what’s ahead. Too often we go through these changes in our lives feeling like we’re the first one. The consequences on our health and wellbeing can be really significant. According to TENA research, conducted as part of this campaign, one in three go through menopause feeling very alone, and 94% feel unprepared for menopause when it comes.

But there’s a huge amount of collective wisdom that women have, and the more we all know, the better off we’ll all be. We hope that those watching the campaign will reflect on their own experience or understanding of menopause and feel inspired to have a conversation with someone close to them. We want to enable women to share their experience and knowledge, particularly intergenerationally, so that this really is the last generation of women who go through it feeling isolated, alone and unprepared.

 

LBB> Why did you decide that a mother-daughter relationship is the best way to depict this?


 
Lauren & Augustine> We wanted to trigger intergenerational conversations and felt like the mother-daughter relationship was the best starting point for that. We realised we’d never asked our own mums about the menopause, or even realised when they were going through it (despite fraught the screaming matches, slammed doors, and frequent tears). We found mother-daughter relationships particularly interesting because those hormonal experiences can often intersect – puberty and the menopause under one room is a hormonal hellscape! And yet, as teenagers we’re so focused on being hormonal ourselves, we don’t realise the midlife women around us – whether that’s our mums, aunts, teachers, friends, etc – are also going through a hormonal upheaval. We wanted to draw that parallel – and show that menopause deserves the same attention and understanding as puberty. If we talked about it more and represented it in culture, we’d be much more compassionate. And perhaps there’d be fewer slammed doors.

 

LBB> Talk to us more about the parallel you drew between puberty and menopause.



Lauren & Augustine> Throughout our lives, women’s bodies go through so many hormonal upheavals, and yet cultural representation falls off the cliff at puberty. Lots of people refer to menopause as puberty but in reverse. We found it a particularly interesting parallel because where puberty is understood and highly represented in culture, across film, literature, and TV, menopause is totally left behind. It’s a huge cultural blindspot. We felt that, like puberty, menopause deserved its beautiful, emotionally-nuanced stories of confusion, rage, liberation and becoming.

It’s no wonder the parallel is drawn so easily between puberty and menopause; they share a lot. From disorientating body changes to mood swings and hormonal rage, to feeling misunderstood, and then coming to understand yourself better. We wanted to lend the emotional depth and beauty of the coming of age genre to the tumultuous, often difficult, sometimes beautiful changes of menopause. Crucially, the coming of age genre allows us to understand menopause as a period of change, leading to a new beginning. Too often menopause is represented as an ending, a time for older women to quietly retire from TV, possibly reappearing later as a wise, greying (sexless) grandmother, if they’re lucky. We wanted to change that for good.

 

LBB> What do you hope the cultural impact of this campaign will be?



Bea> Years and years of stigma and taboo have meant that menopause is a bit of a cultural blindspot. Because it didn’t appear in culture, people weren’t talking about it. And because people weren’t talking about it, it didn’t appear in culture. There was this deep-seated, vicious cycle.

We want to break open the way menopause is represented and further break the silence to generate much-needed conversation. Our ultimate goal would be for everyone to understand what menopause is, what it’s like to go through it, and how best to support those who are. Whether that’s daughters, sisters, friends, partners, sons, employers, governments or brands. It happens to half the population; we all need to understand, support and celebrate it – and talk about it more. We hope that people watching the film at home on their sofas will turn to their mums, grans, aunties, partners, sisters, friends and say, ‘what’s menopause like for you?” Or, pick up the phone.

 

LBB> Do you think that creative media is increasingly speaking more about women's issues and do you believe it is doing enough in terms of education and representation? What can be done better?



Bea> It definitely feels like we’re riding a wave of change. Only five or 10 years ago, it would have been considered radical to be talking about menopause so openly in advertising. Having said this, it’s important it doesn’t feel like a flash in the pan. If you’re going to talk about women’s issues, it has to be embedded into the DNA of the brand to be credible and make sense for your audience.

Part of the solution is more honest, truthful and empathetic representation. Another is providing the opportunity and platform for women to share their stories. And doing it in a way that feels like an invitation, rather than additional pressure. It’s about helping to create the right conditions and the right environment for women to feel more comfortable. It’s not about forcing them to expose or disclose anything they don’t want to. Or trivialising it and telling them to embrace it all with confidence.

It was important to us that we were representing the wide variety of experiences of menopause. We conducted lots of research, hearing from real people’s experiences of menopause – that was so instrumental to the development of the campaign. They were so searingly astute about their experiences of night sweats, air conditioning addictions, and wanting to throttle their partners. This informed our campaign, allowing us to tell truly authentic stories, inflected with the observational humour that so many women use to get through it.

 

LBB> What can be said about ageism in advertising and what improvements can be made to help people not fear ageing?

 

Bea> Advertising reflects culture and, still, in ours there’s a dangerous pursuit and promotion of youth. It’s portrayed as aspirational and by dint of that, ageing is seen as undesirable.

It’s a problem that plays out in the media more broadly, beyond just advertising. In 2020, we carried out some research with the Geena Davis Institute that looked at the representation of older adults in entertainment media. We found that in the top-grossing films of 2019, 0% of leads over 50 were female! When they do appear, they’re cast in stereotypical roles - 33% were stubborn, 32% were grumpy and 18% were unfashionable.

Women’s worthiness is still too often tied to their appearance and their bodies. Men’s, on the other hand, is tied to what they do and how they act. It’s infuriating when you know that midlife women are living these intense, interesting, diverse lives, which are being overlooked. They’re the prisoners of a reductive stereotype.

It’ll be a good start to just start shining a light on this reality, and show that life doesn’t end at 50. A big part of this will be correcting the ageism that exists in our industry, making sure more midlife women are at the table, making the decisions and shaping the work.

 

LBB> What were the most challenging and equally the most fun parts of this campaign?


 
Lauren & Augustine> We wanted to show the painfully-relatable, but rarely-seen-on-TV truths of menopause, from rogue beard hairs and bladder weakness to night sweats and hormonal rage, to lube-fuelled intimacy and brain fog. But we also wanted to combat overwhelmingly negative stereotypes of menopause, and show that menopause is a beginning and not an end. It was challenging to strike that balance, between telling the full truth, without every sugar coating, and leaving the viewers with an overall uplifting feeling. Hopefully, we pulled that off!

Covid was also a challenge, as ever – our cast got sick and we had to delay the final days of our shoot. Thank goodness for our amazing producers Trish Russell and Margo Mars.

During the shoot, Augustine was also battling a huge endometriosis flare, but she clutched at her hot water bottles, crammed opiates down her throat and got through it! Being all together again, despite the health mishaps, was so much fun – it was so wonderful after years of being remote to see each other again and be on a buzzing set. Having a majority female crew was so much fun.



LBB> This campaign is one of the only ads to actually show urine on screen. Do you believe that this creative decision can be part of a bigger cultural shift, especially as more women are noticing discrepancies in ads such as hairless legs in razor commercials, or blue liquid used for pad commercials? What is the importance of breaking these habits in advertising?



Lauren & Augustine> As soon as Bodyform put blood in a tampon ad, it suddenly felt absurd to use the blue liquid. We hope this might have a similar effect – helping remove the shame by showing the realities of bladder weakness, without fear, shame or smokescreens. Advertising needs to stop reinforcing shame around women’s bodies – we bleed, we sweat, we pee, we lactate. We have discharge in our pants, and hair on our bodies. The more we hide all these things, the worse off we all are.

People feel so much shame around their bladder weakness – the more we can destigmatize and demystify this experience, the better it will be for everyone. One in three women experience incontinence – it’s about time we talked about it, so people feel less alone. It was hugely important that this was done in an empathetic way – we wanted it to feel casual and incidental. Just part of the fabric of life. Because that’s the reality of it.

 

LBB> Tell us more about the wider campaign that the TENA ad is part of?


 
Bea> The film is just the start of the campaign. Social will have a huge part to play. Every woman’s experience of menopause is different, so we’ll use social channels to tell these various other stories - dismantling the one-dimensional stereotype as we go. Channel 4 are also creating a range of social videos, showing intergenerational conversations and breaking taboos around menopause.

We’ve also created an Infrequently Asked Questions guide. The guide encourages its readers to ask better - and more - questions about menopause, and shows the value of doing so. Countering the quite dry, clinical information typically brought up by any Google search on the topic, the guide features words of wisdom gathered from women on their own menopausal experiences, as well as the advice and tips they wish to pass down to those yet to live through it.

And finally, we have a number of product films. During menopause, intimate skin can become even more sensitive with dryness, itchiness and redness. Bladder weakness, which can occur as part of menopause, can exacerbate these issues. Alongside the campaign, TENA is launching a new product - TENA Lights Sensitive Pads - which are specifically designed to care for sensitive intimate skin.

 

LBB> Any final thoughts?


 
Lauren & Augustine> We all know someone going through menopause. Why not ring them up and ask how they’re doing, and what menopause is like for them?

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