Thinx's first national ad campaign imagines a world where everyone gets periods

Thinx has been reinventing the conventional wheel on periods since it was founded in 2013. First, the feminine hygiene company launched period underwear, designed to be leak-resistant so you can free-bleed even on your heaviest day. Then the brand created a period sex blanket in an effort to lift the taboo surrounding sex during that time of the month. More recently, Thinx also started selling an FDA-cleared reusable tampon applicator, an eco-friendly solution for traditional plastic applicator tampons.

On top of offering alternatives to tampons and pads, Thinx has been on a mission to stop glossing over the realities that people who menstruate face once a month, and break the archaic stigmas surrounding periods once and for all.

In fact, earlier this year, Thinx debuted its People With Periods campaign, the first of its kind to feature a transgender man, who shed light on the important yet often unrecognized need for menstrual care among trans men. Now, Thinx has launched its first national ad campaign, cheekily dubbed “MENstruation.”

The powerful ad imagines a world where everyone has periods—men included—and implores you to consider this question: If all people got periods, would we still be so uncomfortable talking about them?

The national ad campaign features cisgender men in different, but super common situations that women face during that time of the month. It starts with a young boy telling his dad that he got his period for the first time. Then, a man is seen lying in bed and rolling over to find a bloodstain on the sheet. Later, another man walks through a locker room with a tampon string hanging out from under his briefs. The ad shows several of these everyday experiences, reframing them in an effort to destigmatize menstruation.

Siobhan Lonergan, chief brand officer of Thinx, shared why the company took this approach with its new campaign in an interview with Adweek.

“I hope our audience will watch intensely, consider it in a different way and continue to open up that conversation,” Lonergan added. Unfortunately, the above ad won’t be shown in its entirety on TV. Why? Because traditional TV advertisements still don’t allow the sight of blood. “It wasn’t something we could really challenge,” Lonergan told Adweek.

That in and of itself is exactly why it’s so important to see advertisements that show the realities of periods without sugarcoating the experience.