Grand Prix Winner at Cannes Lions - The Tampon Book

I just came back from a glorious week in Cannes, France for the Cannes Lions Awards…the Festival of Creativity. I don’t go every year, but every year I do go I come back energized and awakened with a determination to be ever more creative.

This year is no exception.

I plan to share some of the incredible work here on my blog, and I’m going to start out with a Grand Prix (best in show) winner from The Female Company in Germany. It’s a great example of the merging of several marketing/communications disciplines to create something powerful. Something that creates change!

For background, tampons in Germany are taxed as a luxury good at 17% while most other items are taxed at 7%. Makes no sense. So The Female Company took their new organic tampons and packaged them into a book so that it would qualify for the lower tax bracket. Clever packaging combined with impactful marketing and earned media communications caused the book to be sold out almost immediately, generating even more news. With a petition on Change.org, the company is working towards changing the legislation to change tampons categorization from being a luxury item. Great public affairs work for sure.

The Tampon Book!

No wonder it attracted the attention of everyone at Cannes! What’s your experience? JIM