“Exercising sucks while you’re on your period.”

I don’t know a single woman that would disagree. At best, exercising on your period is “ok”, at worst it’s “so incredibly frustrating, it doesn’t make sense why there aren’t better solutions out there.” Imagine running a marathon and needing to stop every 3 hours to change your tampon.

Flex created the perfect period product for athletes: a flexible disc that doesn’t leak, doesn’t smell, and can be worn for up to 12 hours at a time.

The first time Flex and I worked together, we created a mass-market ad for women in general. This time around, they wanted to target a specific niche that could really use the benefits their disc offers: athletes.

The challenge was: How do you introduce a brand new period product, when athletes have presumably been using their current method for many years?

The solution: We highlighted Flex’s benefits in an environment that athletes understood. This isn’t your typical period product for athletes commercial: there are no smiling dancing ladies, no white tennis skirts, and no bizarre blue liquid. It’s honest, because the honest truth is you really do leak onto your yoga pants sometimes.

My responsibilities as Creative Director:

Research: I sat down with Flex’s growth team to hear their goals. While their menstrual disc is loved by all kinds of women, it had been life changing for athletes in particular. Traditional period products (pads, tampons) come with quite a few issues: they need to be changed every few hours, they’re prone to leaking, can be uncomfortable, and can smell. These issues are magnified when you’re an athlete. When you’re running a marathon, you don’t want to stop every few hours. When you’re competing and need to wear a specific kind of outfit, you definitely can’t risk leaking.

Athletes who tried Flex loved that it can be worn for 12 hours straight, without leaks, discomfort, or odor. We decided to double down on this niche, and create an ad specifically for athletes.

Writing: The worst ads are the ones that are blissfully unaware unrelatable they are. Period commercials commit this offense all the time. Despite the fact that period products are inherently related to potentially uncomfortable topics like blood, cramps, leaks, smells — period commercials don’t talk about them, let alone show them. Periods are treated as hush hush instead of a normal part of half of the population’s lives.

We wanted athletes to feel acknowledged and heard. We know how much it sucks to leak while you’re doing yoga. We know how much it hurts to exercise while you’re having cramps. And instead of shying away from talking about these things, we’re going to be honest while throwing in as much humor as we can fit.

Visuals: The creatives for this script opened up a lot of interesting conversations around taboo topics. I didn’t want to tip-toe around the subject of blood, but I also didn’t want to come across as immature by showing too much blood. Since period’s are still taboo to talk about, we knew that showing period leaks could potentially be off-putting but ultimately decided to commit to being honest and authentic. I wanted an athlete to see this and think, “yep, they get it”.

Post-production feedback: I gave detailed feedback to our editor to help ensure the cut reflected what was intended in the script. For this script in particular, we wanted to make sure the momentum of the video didn’t slow down. If the pacing felt too slow (via cuts, music), the viewer might become bored and move on.