Early in 2023 I was asked by the charity Wellbeing of Women to help them to create an advocacy campaign to improve menstrual health in the UK. This was driven by menstrual health being identified as a key priority for women in the government’s Women’s Health Strategy.

So, I carried out research, wrote the strategy, and project managed the production of the campaign until it launched.

I used search data, menstrual health sector research (looking at existing campaigns and resources), social media listening data, and the results of Wellbeing of Women’s nationally-representative survey. The research showed that period pain and heavy bleeding were the two period symptoms most commonly searched, discussed, and experienced by women. Through this initial research, the campaign was “led by women’s voices”, which is a key part of Wellbeing of Women’s five-year strategy. These findings, and the campaign strategy, was then validated through discussions with gynaecologists and GPs.

“Just a Period” went live with six campaign videos, 16 new health information articles, survey results, a series of case studies (including my own!) and lots of organic and paid social media, in September 2023. The campaign creative was produced by Lark. The PR side was handed by Wellbeing of Women’s internal team, and they gained national media coverage, including breakfast television.

The advocacy ask was launched in early 2024 – a petition, with demands for action aimed at the Government. At the time of writing, the petition has been signed by over 10,000 people. As well as supporter mobilisation, the Care2 petition has also been an effective source of email list-growth for the charity.

The next phase of the campaign was to produce a practical digital tool to empower women to avoid dismissal of their period symptoms. The Period Symptom Checker was the solution. You can read about the co-design process of developing the Period Symptom Checker, and its impact, here.

Results

Within eight weeks of the Period Symptom Checker launching, it had been used by 16,000 people. Around 20% of people who use the Period Symptom Checker sign up for ongoing emails from Wellbeing of Women.

In the first year of the “Just a Period” campaign:

• the campaign web pages were viewed over 94,000 times (likely much higher in reality – these are just the views of people who agreed to website cookies),
• there was a 20% increase in engaged website sessions across the entire website,
• there were over 450,000 engaged video plays (over 25% or 30 seconds),
• over 5,000 people signed the petition, and
• the campaign won ThirdSector’s Comms Campaign of the Year