The New Lil-lets Campaign

After encountering some varied opinions from colleagues and completely changing my own tune, I have finally settled on a point of view regarding the new Lil-lets campaign by MC Saatchi & Abel.

Someone argued that the ad doesn’t convey any functional product benefits (e.g. efficacy and quality) and hence, is essentially not doing much for the brand. I tend to disagree.

I admit that the campaign/ad is quite emotional and serious and says nothing of the product, but I think that is precisely what’s working for me. I reckon it is the details of sanitary products that embarrass people i.e. the functional benefits that are given horrible names/references like channels, leaks, leak-protection, WINGS (for crying out loud), barriers, walls, absorbent gel…all of which have quite vivid connotations or that conjure up very specific, unfeminine and often awkward imagery.

I think the category, through its communication and what have since become conventions, has created half the embarrassment that women experience when it comes to talking about/experiencing periods and I really don’t know if many chicks would choose to see all this stuff.

What has changed my mind about the Lil-lets campaign is the very fact that it says nothing about all those exaggerated or weird things: no demos, no flapping wings or contorting pads, no blue liquid, no reminders of all the things I really hate and that I am pretty certain other girls and women dislike too.

Essentially, this ad challenges the category slightly and gives a little more credit to what women know and feel i.e. implying a level of personal discernment when it comes to choosing and using (pretty intimate) products and knowing/feeling what is quality and what works.

This is my experience. NOBODY can help me when I’m on my period besides chocolate, I migraine tablet and isolation (read: a day off so I don’t have to talk to anyone), so a sanitary brand is unlikely to do much for me either. All it offers is a product I HAVE to use. No matter how comfortable you try and convince me your pad or tampon is I’d still prefer not to wear one. Full stop. But because that’s not realistic, all I want is a product that is the “healthiest”/best possible quality, the most efficacious, the least embarrassing…and if it proves not to work, I’ll ask what my friends are using and change very swiftly.

A brand needs to say very little to suggest that it is a quality and hence efficacious product – I will make my decision based on what you look like on that shelf or, depending on my age, I’d rely on my mother or friends for help. At the end of the day, the proof will be in my experience of a sanitary product, especially since I believe that every woman or girl has had an embarrassing moment, moments which are actually often not avoidable or solvable by the best product on the market.

Having said all this, the Lil-lets communication may be category challenging and worthy of praise for sparing us demos and unique descriptions, but executionally, it’s not new. One could change the voiceover of the ad and it could be for life insurance, a car, a bank, an education policy, a beauty product, tracker or the next instalment of the new KFC campaign…