A Touch of Feminine Hygenius

Aussie Marketer Wants to Show Tampons Are as Fun as 'Guitar Hero'

Posted by Charlie Moran on 08.28.08 @ 02:59 PM

What do you get when you mix "Guitar Hero" and tampons? If you answered Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed," you are very very very wrong.

We're not sure how many highballs it took to connect the dots between feminine hygiene products and an attractive young lady ripping on a Les Paul on a rooftop, but here it is. To promote its Patterns line of women's products, the Australian marketer Libra shot this ad with a woman playing guitar riffs as the familiar video-game icons float across the sky. Except, of course, those aren't the same icons, they're the simple designs spread across the packaging of Libra's Patterns line.

We have no idea who this lady is, but visitors that check out the Libragirl portal will find tracks by rock bands including Aussie girl rockers like The Veronicas, Kate Alexa and Claire Clarke. We like rock 'n roll as a source of female empowerment, but doesn't such a contrived packaging gimmick like this play into stereotypes about the frivolity of those same young girls?

[Frukt]

2 Comments

By DanaDoesDesign | Kansas City, MO August 29, 2008 10:21:56 pm:

I don't hate it...but I am almost 29, and I remember being 13. I think a girl is more likely to use the tampons her mom uses, or buys for her. Honestly, I still use the brand that my mom used. I am not sure that this commercial is going to convince a girl living at home to ask her mom to buy this brand, or to go out and buy them herself. The technology component of it, this Guitar Hero-esque thing with the symbols, which are also the patterns from the boxes, it's creative. I think the box being different than Tampax or OB does help sell it to young girls.

It's an interesting and difficult product to sell, even more so than toilet paper, which I know also gets discussed here. Gotta give kudos to the Aussies for trying something a little different.

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By Jasmint | Toronto, ON September 3, 2008 05:15:49 pm:

I love this ad.

The traditional girly image associated with tampons is deadly old-fashioned, yet still ubiquitous.

Even though I'm definitely feminine, I loathe that pretty, sweet, meek, floral crap. In fact, whenever I get my hair cut or blown out, I specifically tell the stylist that I don't want to look like a girl in a tampon commercial.

I would buy this brand, and would buy it for a future daughter, too.

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