“Just a
Period”
Wellbeing of Women
Education and advocacy campaign
An empowering campaign giving women the agency and advice they need to get the right treatment.
What we did
Concept
Campaign
Copywriting
Design
Art direction
Campaign video
Project management
Millions of women and girls suffer from devastating period symptoms. But all too often, even crippling pain and flooding are ignored, downplayed or dismissed. The charity Wellbeing of Women wanted an empowering, educational campaign to help women speak up for their symptoms and get the treatment they need.
‘Just a Period’ is a phrase heard all too often by women around the UK – whether from medical professionals, colleagues, friends or the voice inside their head. After chatting with the charity and interviewing women with lived experience of being dismissed in this way, we decided to build a bold, challenging campaign around this single telling phrase – the recognition is inspires, the injustice it inflicts.
“Lark were a pleasure to work with, and produced beautiful designs. They encouraged us to go with a brave name for our campaign, which has really paid off. The campaign achieved widespread national media coverage in its first week, with The Guardian linking directly to educational resources that Lark wrote for us, driving traffic, improving SEO and of course directly helping women and girls.”
Beth Granter, digital consultant, Wellbeing of Women
We brought our campaign concept to life with smart art direction and impactful design in a series of static digital and print ads. These showed real women standing in front of a wall of words describing some of the debilitating symptoms dismissed as ‘just a period.’
We then scripted, storyboarded, shot and directed the campaign’s centrepiece: a direct, uncompromising video that shone a light on the real stories of women who for too long had their symptoms dismissed and underlying conditions ignored. Alongside this, we produced a series of shorter ‘case study’ videos in which the women told their stories to camera.
Impact
58,836 campaign web page views
+180% vs target
68,687 engaged campaign video views
+101% vs target
22,456 engaged web page visits
+168% vs target
(6-month numbers)
Audience feedback for ‘Just a Period’ has been overwhelmingly positive, and the charity tells us this has been by far their most successful campaign ever in terms of reach and engagement.
Just one month after launch, all major targets set for the campaign had been beaten. Six months on, it’s still on track to exceed the KPIs set by the charity.
Social media impressions have now reached over 5 million, while the increase in engaged (+10 second) sessions on the Wellbeing of Women website means thousands more women and girls across the UK are educating themselves about their periods, and feeling empowered to get the advice and support they need.
The campaign has been picked up by the national press, featuring in The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, The Evening Standard, Women’s Health, Sky News and ITV’s This Morning.
‘Just a Period’ was also mentioned during a parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee hearing into the challenges women face getting diagnosis and treatment for gynaecological conditions.
We’ve also picked up a few gongs in recognition of our hard work and the impact of this incredible campaign…
Awards
Third Sector Awards 2024
Winner - Communications Campaign of the Year
Smiley Charity Film Awards 2024
Winner - Best Charity Film
(£1-£2.5m sector)
Communiqué Awards 2024
Finalist - Charitable Campaign of the Year
Purpose Awards 2024
Highly Commended - Best Health Cause Campaign
Thanks to…
Gozde, Beth, Rebecca and Janet at Wellbeing of Women for your collaboration and support.
Meghna and the film crew for creating such a safe and open set, and for beautifully weaving these women’s stories together.
Our brilliant cast: Beth, Dawn, Esther and Tanya for sharing your pain so candidly and passionately.
