Episode 109 - Canesten Ad Reviewed by bacano.io and Publicis Groupe
Canesten are on a mission to de-stigmatise conversations about female genitalia. Their new ad, The Truth Undressed, references an educational website and their efforts to bring more awareness and information to women everywhere.
But is this ad chosen by Contagious and created by AnalogFolk doing enough beyond the PR play? Does it do enough to create allies and generate conversations? What more could Canesten do to create real change?
Find out what our guests Zoë Chowney (CEO and Founder of bacano), Bronwen Foster-Butler, and James Douglas (SVP, Performance Marketing at Publicis Groupe) had to say about the ad and let us know your take!
Episode 109 - Canesten Ad Reviewed by bacano and Publicis Groupe
Transcript - It’s not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
Hi, I'm Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and we are brought to you as ever by Contagious, so please go and check those guys out after the show. So before we get to this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests
Zoë Chowney 0:27
I'm Zoë Chowney. I'm CEO and founder of a company called bacano.
Bronwen Foster-Butler 0:31
Hi, I'm Bronwen Foster-Butler. And I am currently in between jobs.
James Douglas 0:40
Hi, everyone, James Douglas. I'm SVP, Performance Marketing at Publicis Media.
Tom Ollerton 0:45
What an amazing panel! Canesten have created a website called TheTruthUndressed, which seeks to destigmatize conversations about vaginas, vulvas, and female genitalia. And they've created a video to go along with it. Let's have a look.
What we always do is vote on a scale of one to five how great that whole activation is. So one, two, three... A four, a four, and a three.
Bronwen Foster-Butler 2:11
Three and a half!
Tom Ollerton 2:12
Well done, Canesten. That is a... That is a relatively high-scoring ad. James, what's going on here? What's the wider campaign doing outside of this video?
James Douglas 2:19
For me, it's a straight education play. So there's a pure opportunity to set up an experience, set up something to really change the conversation to become a lot more relevant to niche audiences that probably are just being lost in your typical corporate experience on the canesten.co.uk site.
Bronwen Foster-Butler 2:37
I thought it was great. And it's interesting James, you say niche because I would say that women are not niche and, but I think that's the patriarchy at work because we've been taught that we are a niche. So I think what's great about it is it's, you can tell it's an all female team behind it because there's actual lived experience insight guiding it. I think what I'm looking for next would be how do they actually do something beyond what for me was a PR play.
James Douglas 3:02
I'm glad Bron would use, you called out the word "niche." But for me, I want to go back to who do you think the target consumer is for this? The way I go into this is, it's definitely younger. I think dudes, you know, destigmatizing dudes, creating allies, you know, have a conversation, have, you know, be more aware of this and not, you know, straight up not pornography. The hook that I would kind of bring to it, though, is it bold enough? Don't get me wrong, it's bold, but it's an isolated experience. And that's where I was going with this educational sort of external site that it is. This experience like it could be so much more, it could really hopefully generate conversations, generate allies. I would hope that, you know, there's, there's an opportunity to bring it more central to the broader brand messaging that Canesten is putting out there.
Zoë Chowney 3:44
But this ad, this is just the start, you know. I mean, from small acorns do big oak trees grow, and all that. And you've got to, you've got to start somewhere.
Tom Ollerton 3:52
And how about you, Zoë? What was your take when you first saw it?
Zoë Chowney 3:55
I think it's great. I think anything that destigmatizes things like this is only a positive thing. It's about time people could talk openly. It's people's bodies. You know, for the younger generation, there's so much sexual content on the internet, which they're exposed to these days more than, you know, when I was a kid, obviously. I think it's so nice to actually have education out there. And just to try and get rid of that stigma and enable people just to talk openly about, about issues and learn about themselves and know that everybody's different, there is no normal or standard. The more people understand, the less stigmatized things are, and more people understand, the less scary it seems and the less of a taboo, and yeah, just a really positive thing.
Bronwen Foster-Butler 4:39
This is a campaign about destigmatizing genitalia. The penis isn't stigmatized, so why is it that we've even been calling it a vagina when it's actually called the vulva? The level of miseducation that goes across the entire population is so vast that I think the more publicity for all women's health issues, the better. And yeah, seeing a guy champion it, I think will make other men... Like even my husband, sometimes he's like, "Do you need tampons?" He has to whisper it. Come on!
James Douglas 5:10
The thing that I was most disappointed by frankly is there was no link from canesten.co.uk, like the primary site to this, but there's plenty of links back from Truth Untold back to Canesten. And I'm like, "It's a one way conversation. That's not cool." Like really bring it in. Make it part of your initiative. That's the point that I'm saying. Could they have gone more bold?
Bronwen Foster-Butler 5:29
I would have loved to have had a little bit more of sort of collectivism of bringing the industry along, a bit like Tony's Chocolonely do a great job of making how to remove slave labor from a chocolate supply chain. And they, it's open source for any chocolate brand in the world. I think that's going to create real change. I think Tony's is great at is they're having conversations with the big food manufacturers to try and create change across the industry. And what I would have loved to see or love to see next from Bayer is that bringing people along changing taboo, what other pharmaceutical firms are they reaching out to? And I think the fact that it is just us right now or "us" goes to show that there is sort of the marketer behind there being like, "We're gonna drive all this traffic and make Canesten the most beloved fresh cream brand in the world."
Zoë Chowney 6:14
Like in Scotland, you've probably heard about they've got a Period Dignity Officer.
Bronwen Foster-Butler 6:18
Wasn't it a man though, Zoë?
Zoë Chowney 6:20
Yes. Yes, he was. Now I hadn't... Initially, I thought, "Really? A man's got this job?" And then I've read more about it. Heard interviews with the guy. Bless him. He is bloody fantastic. You know, the statements he put out, he's just so thoroughly excited, and passionate about doing his job. He really wants to destigmatize it. I think the fact is a man talking about it, in some ways is actually a good thing. Because it's got it into the news. It's got it into the media, it's got people talking about it, and why shouldn't men talk about it? And that helps, I think, with the taking away the stigma and the taboo of talking about it. And the more people that understand more people that engage with it, I think the better but yeah, it's a guy.
Tom Ollerton 7:03
James, I'd love to know your view from a performance perspective. What's your performance view of this?
James Douglas 7:08
It's challenging with the type of content, the automated filters from partners to sort of ban or kick elements out just by virtue of you know, AI decisions that are incredibly biased, not really understanding the content that's on the website. I would say it's, it's a delicate balance. And I'm sure they debated this, and I'm sure there's legal considerations. But for me, where I would go, kind of bringing this closer to really, truly evolving your product, the way you position your product toward younger audiences would be more of, hopefully, the direction I would hope they're going and this might be I think, Zoë, you said acorns, building a tree, it's hopefully this is the first step on a much bigger journey to truly get there. And this just, you know, my worst case scenario would be this is just a, a one-off example that just disappears in a year or two and is lost and forgotten, like too many non-branded websites tend to be.
Zoë Chowney 7:55
Maybe they were too scared about getting accused of trying to profit and monetize off education of such a subject. And I think that's a shame. I think they're doing a good thing. Profit from it, drive engagement, drive, drive, leads, sales, business, whatever. If you can make doing the right thing commercially viable, and positive, and hit your bottom line, it's going to encourage more companies to do exactly the same thing.
Bronwen Foster-Butler 8:22
Yeah, I mean, I just think that the brand is the entire business and it touches every part of it. And I think for a brand to say that, you know, it has a purpose, that isn't just a marketing tool, it has got to permeate every level, otherwise Gen Z are gonna sniff it out. They're not going to take it. I think that if they're going to be bold enough to say that they have a purpose, the marketing director or CMO, whoever it is, has to do the enrollment with the entire C-suite. So that then whatever it is that marketing is deciding to do, there's a question and really deep analysis of what does this mean for finance? What does this mean for HR? What does this mean for procurement? So that it is something that they can truly stand behind and it doesn't just become a flash in the pan or worse, you know, blown back in their face.
James Douglas 9:04
Couldn't agree more. Hopefully, there's a constituent in the brand to help drive that moving forward.
Tom Ollerton 9:08
So I think that's a really nice place to leave it. Zoë, Bronwen, James, thank you so much.
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