From students hosting high school lock-ins to New York City Mayor Bloomberg announcing a city-wide product drive, the Always & Tampax Protecting Futures program has inspired people across the country to get involved and spread awareness about a little known issue affecting girls in sub-Saharan Africa.

The feminine care category is known to be a low consumer involvement category: women simply do not form an emotional connection to their sanitary protection products; the topic of feminine protection is also one that is very infrequently covered by traditional media. UNICEF research revealed that one in ten African girls do not attend school during menstruation because of the lack of clean and private sanitation facilities in schools. This disturbing finding was used as the campaign’s platform. After assessing the category climate and extensive proprietary research, we conceptualized and led the launch of a multi-agency, holistic program for Always and Tampax called Protecting Futures – a campaign committed to raising awareness about the impact the lack of sanitary protection has on a girl’s education in developing countries. Program results include a double digit increase in product shipments, funding for improvements to African schools and communities and global expansion of the campaign.

Campaign Announcement• We built upon an existing partnership between beinggirl.com and the UNA-USA HERO campaign to develop a larger cause platform across the entire FemCare brand portfolio.• We launched an aggressive media and influencer campaign to introduce the programme and boost WOM.• Targeted top outlets covering health, education, and philanthropic beats and leveraged the national call-to-action for 2008 HERO Youth Ambassadors for additional media interest.Youth Ambassador Program:• We announced a national search inviting students to apply to become 2008 HERO Youth Ambassadors and volunteers in Africa to work on school-based projects funded by Protecting Futures, including on-site construction, classroom teaching and recreational activities with students which contributed greatly to the girls’ education and provided much needed resources to area schools.• We reached out to local print and broadcast media about the students consumer activation.• As a direct result of ongoing PR initiatives and outreach, consumers were inspired to engage in grassroots organic support projects.• We capitalized on all consumer response inquiries by encouraging fundraising activities and engaging local media to cover consumer generated participation.

We wanted to drive awareness, eventually leading to:• A New York Times exclusive that secured 115 MM impressions in 163 outlets, with online discussion reaching 19.3MM consumers on 110 Web sites and blogs.• Site visits to beinggirl.com/hero jumping by 450% during November.• Achieving 990,000 site visits to ProtectingFutures.com in the first month.• More than doubling applications for the 2008 Youth Ambassador program to over 4,100.• Protecting Futures reaching approximately 115,000 girls in 17 countries by 2009. We also remain committed to reaching 1 million girls by 2012.Secondly we wanted to develop an emotional connection with consumers:• We motivated a Colorado girl to create a Facebook group supporting the program that engaged 650 individuals.• Received 70 program inquiries from consumers inquiring about ways to help.• Mayor Bloomberg’s ‘Products of Hope’ hosted a pad donation drive in support of Protecting Futures.• Massachusetts teens established “Month for Change” and raised money in support of the programSales:• While P&G does not release specific sales information, confidential sales reports indicate a double digit increase in product shipments.