HeyGirls is a social enterprise that exists to end period poverty. Their ‘buy one give one’ model means more products bought, equals more people helped.

With low awareness of both Hey Girls and the problem of period poverty itself, our brief was to raise awareness in a way that made people feel passionately about the cause and make the switch to Hey Girls products, with no budget or paid media. To help solve the issue of period poverty, we need a lot of people to take action.

Women are told that they shouldn't get angry, if they do they are often dismissed as emotional, irrational, or even hormonal. But anger is the most motivating emotion. Anger gets things done.

To get people to support Hey Girls, we created 'Seeing Red', the first campaign scientifically designed to provoke anger, to motivate action towards ending period poverty.

We recruited world renowned psychologist, Dr. Phil Gable and involved him in every stage of the creative process to develop the most anger-inducing video, audio, and print campaign possible.

Our challenge was twofold:

1) Raise awareness around the fact that 1 in 10 women in the UK can’t afford to have their period

2) Raise awareness of Hey Girls as a solution to period poverty and increase purchase intent amongst their target audience (18-45 y/o)

Using the insight that anger is one of the most motivating emotions, we created a campaign scientifically designed to make you so angry about period poverty you feel compelled to help by buying Hey Girls products.

Psychological insights were used throughout the film's development. Every creative decision, from music to casting, to script, was made in consultation with Dr. Philip Gable, Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware, to ensure we were doing everything we could to increase anger and power collective action.

The film ran online across various social media channels including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as on Hey Girls’ owned channels. The edit still lives online across owned social channels and wherever else it may have been shared. The print appeared across various newspaper and magazine titles including The Guardian, Metro (National), Fabulous, and That's Life.

As this campaign was created entirely pro bono, we utilised free available media space as much as possible, but otherwise we relied solely on the impact of the film to drive awareness.

Following campaign launch, brand awareness increased by 57% amongst Hey Girls' target audience, and 7 in 10 would now consider buying Hey Girls products.

The campaign created 4x more anger in women and 3x more anger in men; importantly, this was anger specifically directed towards ending period poverty. Post-campaign 1.3 million period products have been donated.

'Seeing Red' achieved over 3.5 million PR impressions and over 4 million social impressions.