Gaming might seem an unlikely place for tampons and sanitary pads. They don’t, after all, appear to fit naturally within esports leagues and gaming franchises. And gaming has a reputation—deservedly or not —as a male bastion burdened by sexism and harassment.

But Procter & Gamble Co.’s Tampax and Always are building a growing presence in gaming, both to dispel stereotypes and to champion female-identifying and non-binary gamers. The biggest sponsorship in the space to date for the period-care business begins this month: Tampax and Always are sponsors of the Astral Clash tournament series, alongside global esports organization Gen.G and Galorants, which is the largest community of female-identifying and non-binary players of Valorant, a character-based multiplayer first-person-shooter game from Riot Games.

It's the latest step in a three-year journey, led by Tampax, but increasingly involving bigger sibling Always, said Melissa Suk, VP of North America for both brands.

The process started with a media planning challenge. Reaching gamers is important for connecting with a Gen Z audience that's increasingly hard to reach with TV or even other video formats—exactly because they spend so much time gaming. But beyond just getting incremental reach, Tampax found a level of acceptance and even buzz among the gaming community, Suk said. Those efforts so far have included adding more gaming influencer content across its social channels, sponsoring a Tampax Gaming Fest in 2021, and then an influencer-led Twitch livestream this past April.

“When we broke into the space in 2019, candidly we just wanted to learn if we could successfully reach and appeal to gamers,” Suk said. “Would it be something where our brands would be accepted?”

Building on success

The answer seems to be yes.

“The most recent event we did with a gaming fest blew my mind in terms of the success,” Suk said. “We had over a million views on over 800,000 unique streams. And what was so impressive is that when we looked at our online Tampax brand mentions the seven days following the tournament, it rose almost 74%.

“We have a passion for getting into the space really around the notion that almost half of U.S. gamers are female,” Suk continued. “Yet the community is kind of discouraged from talking about stigmatized topics, especially periods, as we’ve learned is true of most of society, but in particular gaming because it’s historically been seen as this male-dominated space.”

Thus, the gaming programs fit into the broader Tampax marketing mission of normalizing discussion about periods, Suk said. “Gaming is the next avenue to go conquer, because it may not have been where our previous campaign efforts could have reached.”

While Tampax was the early adopter, Always has been getting more involved with esports, in part as an outgrowth of its #KeepHerPlaying campaign to support female athletics, which grew from the brand’s 2014 “Like A Girl” campaign.

“We're trying to broaden it to all of period care, because we proved it out on one business,” Suk said. “But the Insight is the same. Female gamers are using tampons and pads, and it's really about normalizing the conversation about periods regardless of which type of product you use.”

Astral Clash, P&G’s latest program, also supports the Galorants mission to diversify esports by elevating female and non-binary players. That includes providing a safe space to play, compete and develop professional skills within a Discord server of nearly 20,000 members.

P&G’s period-care brands will back teams at two Astral Clash online qualifiers June 17-19 and July 15-17, leading to four teams winning an all-expenses paid to the live finals in Southern California on Aug. 6. These are the first in-person tournaments for Galorants.

Breaking gender barriers

“We’re beyond the point of needless separation when it comes to esports,” said Nicci Barker, owner and co-creator of Galorants, in a statement. “With the help of Tampax and Always, we are helping break down these gender barriers.”

Astral Clash, hosted by Lucy Mae, will feature Tampax and Always ambassador teams with gamers Krystalogy, Blisskai, Nicki Taylor, Jessica Kim, Raeyei and Shannon Williams, all focused on empowering and mentoring players throughout the tournament with livestreams, giveaways and appearances at the live finals.

Because P&G companywide hasn’t done a lot of esports work (Gillette and Old Spice, besides Tampax, have been the brands most active in the space), the company hasn’t built a lot of internal expertise, Suk said. As a result, she said she’s leaned on agencies or other partners that specialize in esports, including Inverted, United Esports, and most recently Gen.G, which she said is the leading esports organization connecting the U.S. and Asia.

“These agencies really help us drive the brand equity and our mission in an authentic way,” Suk said, “and give us the ability to work in a strategic way across platforms that they’re well versed in. They’re a critical component for us.”