Inside the WNBA’s partnership with Opill, the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill

Opill is changing how people buy birth control—and partnering with the WNBA to do it. Opill is the first and only daily over-the-counter birth control pill available in the U.S. Before Opill, anyone seeking the birth control pill in the U.S. needed a prescription to get one from a pharmacist. The Food and Drug Administration approved Opill for over-the-counter use without age restriction in July 2023, and it became available for purchase in select drug stores and online in March 2024. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, check us out on Spotify and hear us on Stitcher. This is our RSS feed. Tell a friend! See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Creativity Award winners here The women’s basketball league partnership was part of Opill’s launch this spring. The marketing team had an “incredible opportunity” to help make birth control more accessible and “address some of those unmet needs in getting access to contraception that so many people have in this country,” Opill Senior Director of Market Activation Evelyn Furia said on the newest edition of Ad Age’s Marketer’s Brief podcast. In order to meet that accessibility goal, Furia’s team had to ensure that the branding, marketing and launch around Opill felt both exciting and fresh, but also accessible and convenient, as well as safe and effective. “This is not a new product … just the way in which you can access it is different,” Leila Bahbah, U.S. women’s health brand lead at Opill parent company Perrigo, said on the podcast. Outside of a heavy digital marketing presence including digital out-of-home ads, the Opill marketing team tapped the WNBA to help them communicate that message. The arrangement comes as women's basketball is enjoying strong momentum with record-breaking TV ratings and strong attendance driven in part by Caitlin Clark's stardom. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Opill® (@opill_otc) The multiyear WNBA sponsorship was announced in early April; Opill became an “associate partner” of the 2024 WNBA Draft held on April 15. It appears to be a wise investment: the draft drew a record 2.45 million viewers. Opill and the WNBA are also collaborating on a nationwide college campus education program where the two partners plan to educate students about this new birth control option. Bahbah isn’t opposed to working directly with WNBA players as influencers in the future either. “Our partnership is very new, so we’re still finalizing a lot of the details,” she said. “I certainly see more opportunities to leverage some of the players … where it makes sense,” she added. With the WNBA concentrating its social justice efforts into two areas this season—civic engagement and reproductive health advocacy—the partnership made sense for the WNBA too. Opill’s rollout comes not only as access to reproductive health is being restricted by lawmakers across the U.S., but also amid a social media movement for women to get off birth control due to potential health consequences. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Opill® (@opill_otc) When asked about how this has impacted the marketing strategy, Bahbah said that “With Opill and our mission of access, what we’re trying to do is tackle misinformation. The whole world of reproductive and sexual health is super confusing right now … and so what we’re trying to do is just be very clear about what Opill is, how it works [and] how it might be different from other contraceptive methods,” she said. Subscribe to Ad Age Sign up now for the latest industry news and analysis Click here

Inside the WNBA’s partnership with Opill, the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill

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