A small innovator entrepreneur came into our offices with an inspiring product – panties that women can use in the days when they have their period. Female underwear, even if it’s an innovative product, it is not much inspiring as such, but when you have a task to develop a meaningful brand and garnish it with a strong voice to fight taboos, it can surely became a story.
Having in mind that probably everywhere in the world, but especially in a small market such as Macedonia, the word MENSTRUATION is a taboo, we proposed Fixie to be the brand that speaks loudly about this concerning issue and fights this taboo. So, in order to do so, we asked ourselves one question: How can we encourage people to talk about something they think is embarrassing?
After Trump election frenzy, Macedonia was globally pinpointed as the originator of fake news. Recently the country also changed its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia, with strong debates and public hysteria around the issue. So, we took these momentums and decided to make a social experiment using fake news and the name change of the country, in order to launch the campaign for this small brand with a strong voice and provoke people to talk openly about the so-called taboo of MENSTRUATION.
The day before 8th of March, the International Women’s Day, when people are vigorously talking about Women’s’ Rights, in collaboration with most prominent media and influencers, who supported our brand mission to break taboos and openly talk about woman reproductive health, we created and disseminated a FAKE STORY.
We said that the “female lobby group from Europe” won yet another battle in the fight for women’s’ rights and succeeded to change the word MENSTRUATION into FEMSTRUATION (МЕНСТРУАЦИЈА to ЖЕНСТРУАЦИЈА on Macedonian), so that it won’t longer consist the word “MEN” as a prefix in it.
This fake news escalated very quickly and the word MENSTRUATION was all over the web portals and social media channels, creating conversations, with people defending the right of women to call it MENSTRUATION or some even agreeing to this name change.
The social experiment ended with dissemination of another PR article, a brand reveal on social media and a BIG THANK YOU for everyone who googled, debated or had an opinion on the topic, but most of all, who openly said the word MENSTRUATION out loud. The goals was to say that Fixie will continue to fight against all taboos concerning women and will raise awareness for MENSTRUATION and reproductive health.
Fixie Period Panties brand was then smoothly introduced onto the market, with a bold OOH campaign and social media presence, creating visuals that convey the message “everything that men do in order not to share blood” referring to the protective shields and helmets men wear, while women have the simplest solution: Fixie Period Panties.
