Discussion Topic: Advertising, Menstruation, and the book FLOW

Some of you know that I work as an advertising copywriter. When I first started this blog, I talked about my work sometimes, but about two years ago, posts about books took over and Presenting Lenore became a book blog.

Recently Rebecca at The Book Lady’s Blog reviewed a book about menstruation called FLOW, and it got me thinking about the few months I worked on a project for Procter & Gamble on the femcare account Always.

Apparently, the authors, Elissa Stein and Susan Kim are very critical of the way femcare companies and advertisers have transformed menstruation “from a natural function…into a veritable hygiene crisis.” In her review, Rebecca says, “Flow’s overarching message is that it is high time women took back control of the menstruation conversation from the femcare companies who have shaped it for many years now.”

As an advertising copywriter on the European Always project, it was my job to “get inside the heads” of women who wear pads. Part of this process was to be an observer during focus group interviews. P&G invited about 20 pad-wearing British women to get together and talk about their periods. As someone who shunned pads since high school (more on that later), these interviews were extremely eye-opening.

For the first time, I heard women say that they LOVED having their period because it made them feel like powerful women who had the unique ability to bring life into the world. When their time of the month came around, these women got out their “granny knickers”, put on the biggest pad they could find, and lounged around on their sofas, reveling in their womanhood.

After the focus group, my team (3 other women, 1 very embarrassed man) got together to talk about the findings and how we could incorporate them into our latest project, a mailer with a coupon for a free package of the latest Always maxi pad featuring a “cottony soft topsheet”.

The conversation was interesting to say the least. 3 of us (well, 4, if you count the man) were not pad wearers for various reasons. The 4th woman admitted to wearing pads, but only because her body had changed after having a baby and tampons couldn’t do the job anymore. We all had a hard time believing that there were woman out there who not only wore huge pads, but actually seemed to enjoy doing so.

We shared the reasons why we preferred tampons. One team member was very sporty and active and felt that pads (and her period for that matter) slowed her down and inconvenienced her. Another cited hygienic reasons and said it couldn’t be healthy to “marinate for hours in your own blood.” The one who did wear pads said she wouldn’t wear the big ones if she could help it because they were so bulky and crinkly that she was sure everyone was staring at her and thinking about how gross she was. The ironic thing? These were all attitudes shaped by consuming years of femcare advertising! And we knew it.

My own period history is one primarily of avoidance (feel free to skip the next two paragraphs if you don’t like oversharing of personal information). My first period came late – at 14 (almost 15). As a very skinny teen who was active in sports (basketball and track), I had very little body fat and an extremely irregular period that came maybe 2-3 times a year. But when it came, it was debilitating. I had such bad cramps that I was dead to the world for a week each time. I had my share of bloody accidents too. Yes, I was that girl wearing white pants at school with a crimson stain steadily getting larger (major mortification). And pads always seemed to let me down, even the ones with wings. Friends on the track team extolled the virtues of tampons, and despite two early bad experiences with them (a wrong insertion technique and a TSS scare), I quickly latched on to them for their convenience and the fact that they let you forget about your period for hours at a time.

In college, I was diagnosed with a hormone imbalance, and put on the birth control pill. It was like a miracle to me. Not only did my skin clear up, but my periods were 2 days at the most without cramping or PMS. Then a (male) doctor told me I could skip periods altogether by simply taking the pill continuously. I’m sure the femcare companies weren’t pleased, because that meant I bought their products only a couple times a year if that. But for me, it made me feel like I had total control over my body.

I wish I could stay I started a revolution at the advertising agency – that I helped women see their periods in new, less shameful, light – but I was only on the femcare team a few months before moving on to another agency and other products. The project I was working on, at least, didn’t have an offensive tone. The main message was that the “cottony soft topsheet” could help women have a more comfortable period.

FLOW sounds like an incredibly important book, and I look forward to reading it. Tell me, how has advertising shaped your attitudes about menstruation?

Lisbon and OFFF Design Conference Highlights

I was in Lisbon last week for 4 days of sightseeing and 3 days of the OFFF design conference featuring some of the world’s leading designers including Stefan Sagmeister (best known for carving text into his body with a knife for a poster about suffering for your art), Paula Scher (amazing corporate identities), Joshua Davis (the most purely entertaining speaker), and Kyle Cooper (creator of over 150 movie titles including Gattaca, the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and Seven).

Sightseeing highlights included the Lisbon Aquarium (Oceanario de Lisboa), Lisbon Barrio Alto (where we had our apartment and drank 10 year old tawny port wine most evenings), the Botanical Garden in Belem, Roca Cape Cliffs (the western most point of continental Europe) and Historic Sintra (a UNESCO World Heritage site) including Pena Palace, Pena Park, and Sintra National Palace.

Sagmeister was the biggest highlight for me at the OFFF. He came out wearing a swingy dress over jeans and immediately launched into a story about being at an aquarium and seeing a perverted fish. He talked about happiness and what makes him happy as a designer. He also talked about his project Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far which includes a series of art installations, a book (pictured at left, and yes I own it and enjoy looking through it), and a website where users can upload their own life lessons. He also introduced the logo and corporate design he developed for La Casa de Musica in Porto, Portugal as well as some furniture he is designing while on his one year sabbatical in Bali.

Paula Scher introduced some of her recent projects including the new corporate identities for MoMA and the New York City Ballet. Another highlight was the customized LED newsticker she developed for the Bloomsburg building.

Former professional skateboarder Joshua Davis uses programming tools like Bezier curves and perlin noise to create his colorful designs. He leapt all over the stage during his presentation and talked about his work and inspirations with such a high energy level, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He said he’s been recently inspired by Spanish and Portuguese tiles (such as the ones found in Sintra), Japanese wallpaper, and WWII airplane, especially the leopard print Italian planes (quote: “We go to war, but we go BEAUTIFUL”).

Kyle Cooper introduced many of the main title sequences he’s done for feature films with his former agency Imaginary Forces and his new agency Prologue. He told little stories about each one. My favorite was that for the Mimic titles, a woman from an animal protection agency was paid $500 a day to make sure he didn’t impale any bugs!

Digital Kitchen is another agency that does main title sequences, mainly for television. They did Dexter, House and True Blood, among others. They screened the titles for True Blood and then spent the hour talking about the making of. Apparently the baptism scene was filmed in a lake infested with snakes.

PES showed us many of the innovative short films he does in stop motion animation. I really liked the film where a peanut is drowning in a sea of peanut butter and his film Western Spaghetti where he used everyday objects in place of food (butter = post it notes, sea salt = googly eyes, boiling water = bubble wrap, dry spaghetti = pixie sticks, cooked spaghetti = rubber bands). Go to eatPES.com to watch all the videos. Totally worth it!

Multitouch Barcelona showed their Human Interaction box and Guten Touch - an interactive wall where you can play Space Invaders by throwing rubber balls at the screen (I tried this and failed miserably). They also talked about twitter, saying WARNING: Twittering a moment may reduce your enjoyment of the moment. Ha, ha. So true.

Karsten Schmidt from Toxi introduced socialcollider.net, an online tool which reveals cross-connections between conversations on Twitter. He also talked about Faber Finds, a fully automated print on demand service from publisher Faber + Faber that prints unique covers for out-of-print books.

Jason Bruges Studio showed some interative stuff he's developing for the 2012 London Olympics, such as Fast, Faster, Fastest, an installation that lets you run against the moving world record line.

Champagne Valentine mentioned their upcoming show about the Facebook/Internet stalking phenomenon called My Lover the Server which will premiere in Amsterdam and then travel to other international cities.

There were a bunch of other speakers as well, but those were the highlights for me.

And now, here are a couple of pictures.

Roca Cape Cliffs

Pena Palace in the mist

Book Review: Where am I Wearing? by Kelsey Timmerman

When I worked on a project for Tommy Hilfiger, writing product copy for their high-end European TH Denim line, I became very interested in the process of making jeans. During a visit to the flagship showroom in Amsterdam, designers walked me through their newest styles, explaining the details. They also told me that making jeans is not an automated process. It takes actual workers to load washing machines full of jeans and stones to make stonewashed jeans, deconstructions and fraying are done by hand, and resins and paint are hand sprayed to make each pair unique.

I would have loved to go on a factory tour and see some of these jeans being made. Kelsey Timmerman got to do just that, and it’s the reason why I picked up his book about his journey across the globe to see where his clothes were made. He went to Bangladesh for his boxers, Honduras for his t-shirt, China for his flip-flops, and upstate New York for his shorts. And, in my favorite section by far, he went to Cambodia to tour Levi’s factories.

I’ve been to Cambodia – even toured a local village – so many of his observations about their culture and low standard of living weren’t new to me. Apparently, Timmerman isn’t a professional journalist, and his prose is sometimes choppy and disjointed, but he mixes hard facts with humorous anecdotes to make this a highly interesting and informative read. At one point he describes asking a Levi’s employee in Phnom Penh if he can get a factory tour. He is open and honest about his intentions and he expects a rebuff:

“As I talk, he presses a button on his phone. I wait for a trapdoor to open beneath my chair, swallowing me. I imagine I’ll slide down into a pit full of idealistic, anti-globalization activists. I’ll be the only one wearing Levi’s and drinking a Coke. Some of them, having been there since the mid 1990s, will be zombielike, and they’ll walk towards me all herky-jerky with outstretched arms chanting, “Diet, Cherry or Vanilla, Coca-Cola is a killa!” Then they’ll eat my brains, because that’s what zombies do.” (p.113)

The employee surprises him though and arranges someone to take him. At the factory, he sees workers grinding jeans with stones and sandblasting them with sand guns. He interviews employees at their homes and comes to the conclusion that even if they don’t live well – they earn only about $60 a month, half of which they send back to the villages to support their families - they are a lot better off than if the garment industry didn’t exist there. We may think of them as sweatshops, but they are also opportunities for desperate people who might otherwise be picking through trash dumps to earn a living.

Timmerman believes in being a conscientious consumer and even provides some resources on how you and me can become one too. That means supporting companies that support fair working conditions. And it means understanding where our clothes come from. This book is a step in the right direction.

Where am I Wearing? is available in hardcover now.

Fun Fact: One of Tommy Hilfiger Denim's most expensive pair of jeans is made in Italy and hand scraped with brush of iron nails to give it its lived-in, vintage look. Now that even sounds kind of fun!

adidas Originals

Several adidas Originals copywriting projects I have been working on are now online at http://www.adidas.com/ (then click on Originals).

They are Handbags for Feet, Originals Games, and Gruen (a new line of clothing that is produced with innovative materials like soybeans, jute, hemp and bamboo and is meant to reduce environmental impact). Check them out!

Daniel's work profile

Go here to see Daniel and his coworkers at Multivisio. The page is in German, but if you click on Daniel's photo, you can see a form he filled out "Was mich begeistert (what exites me)" and four pictures that excite him including Sydney, Hans and Silke in my dad's backyard, Victoria Falls, bum Santa and a monkey at Mt. Popa in Burma.

After a stressful week, we are off to Bologna tomorrow for 5 days to attend a writer/illustrator workshop and the Children's Book Fair.

Passina and Anuga

http://www.passina.com/ is live! Daniel developed the corporate identity and logo and designed the website. I wrote (most of) the copy. It was launched just in time for the Anuga trade fair (food and drink fair) which we attended on Monday in Cologne.

The fair was of course very different than the book fair - we were in the hall with all the fruit juices and energy drinks so free drink samples were everywhere.

Daniel looking the part at the Pimp Juice stand

We also explored the gourmet food hall a bit where I was excited to see American products such as pastrami and twisslers. I also really liked this new Smooze fruit ice - made with coconut milk so it is lactose free. Yummy.

Passina had hired a band to play at the stand starting at 6 pm and it attracted many dancers and onlookers. After that came to an end, we went to have dinner with the client. I learned many interesting facts about fruit - that's for sure!

Tommy Hilfiger

Last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I was in Amsterdam for the Tommy SS 08 line opening. That means they were presenting the collection that is going to be in stores next February. Sunday was the marketing presentation and a fashion show of all the collections. Obviously I am not allowed to say anything specific about it (hence the blurry runway photo above), but I was really impressed with the clothes! They had some really fashion-forward yet totally wearable stuff. Then on Monday and Tuesday, I attended the denim and sport collection workshops and there were several pieces I would love to get my hands on come spring.

So my latest copywriting project to go online is for the adidas originals freizeit collection. I can't link to it directly here because it is in Flash, but you can experience the whole product presentation and read my copy by going to www.adidas.com (choose the international site if prompted), clicking on Originals, and when that loads, clicking on the guys with the croquet mallets. Design is by the main agency I freelance for, Neue Digitale, and they have won a ton of creative awards for their adidas projects. This one has already caught the attention of www.thefwa.com who crowned it favorite website of the day for May 2, 2007.