Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
Via Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet, I learned of this new internet campaign from Stayfree.
At last, my girlish fantasies realized! I have always dreamed of a man who would have dinner almost ready when I got home, and then mansplain the intricacies of feminine hygiene products while the risotto simmered.
Except I grew up in the 1970s, so my fantasy man shaved his face, not his chest, before our date.
[See also A date with Ryan and A date with Trevor.]
Longtime readers may recall that late last year, the New York Times published an essay about how hard Big Pharma has worked to market menopause as an estrogen deficiency disease. Despite that exposé and others of the well-documented risks and limited benefits of hormone therapy, plus thousands of lawsuits pending over the role of HT in breast cancer, there’s apparently still quite a large potential market for pharmaceutical treatments for menopause (and other women’s health concerns).
To find out exactly how to mine that market, you can purchase the research report titled Women’s Health Therapeutics Market to 2016 – High Unmet Need will Drive the Uptake of Novel Drugs in Menopause and Osteoporosis from GBI Research. The report promises the following:
- Analysis of the women’s health market in the leading geographies of the world, which include the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.
- Market characterization of the women’s health market, including market size, annual cost of therapy, sales volume and treatment usage patterns.
- Key drivers and barriers that have a significant impact on the market.
This will better allow you to “align your product portfolio to the markets with high growth potential” and “develop market-entry and market expansion strategies by identifying the leading therapeutic segments and geographic markets poised for strong growth”. Not to mention the ability to “reinforce R&D pipelines by identifying new target mechanisms which can produce first-in-class molecules with more efficiency and better safety”.
It all looks very useful. Too bad I don’t have an extra $3500 in my back pocket.
Step 1: Wash your vulva.
Yep, you’re a lady, so step 1 in asking your boss for a raise is washing your ladyparts with special ladysoap. It’s not until step 8 that we get around to “focus on things you’ve done for the company’s bottom line”.
(Actual advertisement from actual ladymag.)
ETA 08/27/2010: Via the always-awesome Bitch magazine, we’ve learned that Summer’s Eve brand manager has apologized for this ad, and is working to remove it from circulation:
Hi I am Angela Bryant, Summer’s Eve Brand Manager. I would like to first of all apologize if this ad in anyway has offended anyone. We are taking immediate next steps to remove the ad from circulation. We want you to know that Fleet Laboratories and the Summer’s Eve brand have the utmost respect for women. While we understand how some may come to an alternative conclusion regarding our recent ad, that was never our intention. Thank you.
[via Trixie Films]
This ad for Lifestyle stretch fit menstrual pads is actually a sticker placed over the drain in sinks of public restrooms. There are no flowers, no gauzy white dresses or white spandex pants, and it demonstrates the key features of the product, such as adaptable fit of the pad and absorbency, and there’s no blue fluid anywhere in sight.
What do you think, readers? Does it make you want to buy Lifestyle brand pads?
[via Copyranter, who tells us that this ad was produced by Johannesburg ad agency TLC Marketing]
Apparently Max le Tampax is all stressed out about heading off to the Tampon Academy, where he’ll learn all about freshness and vaginal awareness and how to be empowerful to women.
Something like that, anyway. I don’t speak French, so I’d welcome a translation of this ad for a new Tampax product introduced in France.
[via The Frisky]
Elizabeth Kissling’s March 16 post on the launch of the U by Kotex campaign and the comments that followed touched on the implications of the “new” Kotex products and their accompanying empowerment crusade. Comments ranged from how the new tampon applicators resemble glow sticks to how, with the new “menstruation optional” pills and implants, tampon and pad manufacturers are grasping any marketing ploy to keep girls menstruating and buying their products. Indeed, “empowering” women about their menstrual cycle and encouraging women to “celebrate their bodies” is a smart marketing move by Kotex in the face of the menstrual suppression option. The following comment from Giovanna Chesler’s on Kissling’s March 16 post sums up my own opinion about the “radical new product”.:
“Might I add that when I heard that Kotex was bringing a new, radical product to market, I assumed it would be a menstrual cup. What’s new about painting a tampon applicator? Still plastic. Still disposable. Shows how naive I am. Kotex selling menstrual cups… that would be the day!”
Let us not forget, these products still have the same pesticide-infused cotton and the same one-time-use, land fill-bound plastic applicators and wrappers.
Found on the web
The latest magazine ad for Always pads (pictured at right) reads, “97% of women who tried Always Infinity said they’d recommend it to their friends.” Smaller print notes that these data are from a survey at Always.com — suggesting a self-selected population of women who like Always. Respondents who won’t recommend the product are dismissed as women who never like anything.
Sounds like someone’s been reading Darrell Huff’s classic book, How to Lie with Statistics!
Kim and Khloe Kardashian examine boxes of U by Kotex.
U by Kotex, which launched last month in the US, has started the next phase of the campaign featuring reality television stars the Kardashian sisters, Kim and Khloe. I’ve seen two press releases about this so far today. The sisters and their mother, Kris Jenner, star in a new “Getting Real With the Kardashians” video series online.
It’s very unusual for celebrities to appear in femcare ads. Although there are a few well known cases of early career femcare ads (Cheryl Tiegs, Susan Dey, and Cybill Shepherd all appeared in print ads before achieving fame in other arenas, and Courteney Cox, later of Friends fame, holds the distinction of being the first person to utter the word “period” in an American television ad for a menstrual product), the only celebrities that have promoted menstrual products after becoming well-known are gymnasts Mary Lou Retton and Cathy Rigby, and actor Brenda Vacarro. All took some heat for it.
The cycle of fame today is much shorter, and arguably narrower. By narrower, I mean that a star might be famous to a smaller segment of the population; to put it another way, I’m not really familiar with the Kardashian sisters and I’m not sure exactly why they’re famous. But I’m not the target demographic of U by Kotex, either. The products are aimed at young women ages 14-24, who presumably ARE part of the audience reached by the Kardashians.
I’ll be interested to see how this affects their careers, and how fans react. Any fans of the Kardashian sisters care to comment?
This catalog showed up in my office mailbox today. Do I need to say any more than Think Before You Pink?
In other breast cancer news, Rachel at Our Bodies, Our Blog has a good summary (with lots of links) of the recently announced federal court decision to invalidate the patent on breast cancer genes.
One of my Women’s & Gender Studies graduates, who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Gender & Sexuality Studies, recently sent me this Kotex ad from last fall. (She received it from one of her students — don’t you love how that chain works?)
This ad predates Kotex’s all-new we’re-so-hip-and-cool-we-don’t-have-to-tell-you-how-great-our-products-are campaign by at least six months. Lisa found the names of the illustrated sleeping positions disturbing, but what I find interesting about this ad is that it seems to be doing exactly what I’ve suggested femcare ads should do: it tells us why the products are worth shelling out my hard-earned money. There’s no patronizing crap about flowers or freshness, and mercifully, no blue fluid. 
Just “the most coverage of any ultra-thin pad” so that you can “sleep comfortably and move freely”. Because periods happen.
Today, there’s a front page story in the New York Times about Astra-Zeneca’s move to market their cholesterol pills (known as statins, and as the NYT reports, already the most prescribed drugs in the US) at healthy people in spite of unresolved concerns about risks, namely an elevated risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Gee. This sure sounds familiar: a product aimed at healthy people, approved by the FDA, even before there’s ample evidence of safety.
I am imagining the new ad campaign…”Why let cholesterol worries slow you down? Choosing healthy foods and getting adequate exercise is sooooooo 20th century.Take a pill. Done.”
Of course, the comparison I am hinting at here is flawed. High levels of cholesterol ARE a genuine hazard. Heart disease is deadly. Conversely, menstruation is NOT a disease and under most conditions, need not be treated.
But my point here is to call attention to Big Pharma’s too-quick impulse to sell drugs of questionable safety to healthy people and FDA collusion in this. Marketing cycle-stopping contraception (a.k.a. menstrual suppressive contraception a la brands Lybrel and Seasonique, for example) to healthy women is not an isolated incidence of the premature and high-risk mainstreaming of prescription medications. See recent critiques here and here (and the official Society for Menstrual Cycle Research position statement on cycle-stopping contraception here).
In the eyes of Big Pharma, if we aren’t sick, we will be soon. If we aren’t dosing The. Next. New. Drug, we aren’t taking charge of our health.
Sick? I think THAT’S sick.
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