This campaign wasn't about finding quirky salespeople. It was about giving a stage to an overlooked generation of sassy storytellers and vaginal experts, who would, in turn, give a voice to our brand. These weren't our experiences or stories to tell, so we didn't bother. Completely unscripted and unfiltered, they belonged to the Matriarchs – brought to you by Carefree.

Australia/The Nanny State has some of the strictest broadcast advertising regulations in the world. Which simply wouldn't do when we wanted to talk openly about vaginas, periods and beyond. So, we used online as a space to have a more open and honest conversation about topics that deserved it.

Periods and vaginas can be sensitive topics, especially for young women who are constantly told to look and act a certain way. We talked to young women at an age they feel the most vulnerable, with empowering messages from those who've been through it all before.

Globally, the Carefree brand is aligned to a position of the collective sisterhood. Celebrating the right for all women to be unapologetically feminine. In European markets this translates to silk knickers, red nails and rose petals in your bra (yes, really). But in a country where women wear undies and behave in a way that’s far more grounded, to build relevance, we needed to reinvent the sisterhood.

Our heartland is women 18-29, surrounded by media pressure to look and think a certain way.

Globally, the Carefree brand is aligned to a position of the collective sisterhood. Celebrating the right for all women to be unapologetically feminine. In European markets this translates to silk knickers, red nails and rose petals in your bra (yes, really). But in a country where women wear undies and behave in a way that’s far more grounded, to build relevance, we needed to reinvent the sisterhood.

Our heartland is women 18-29, surrounded by media pressure to look and think a certain way.

In a commodity category, we needed to give women a reason to choose our brand.

While advertising for sanitary protection products has evolved from the white bikini and blue liquid demonstrations of the past, the category still feels like a sea of sameness. In an effort to show women as empowered, the category now returns to the warrior female playing sport and living her best life while getting her period.

Globally, the Carefree brand is aligned to a position of the collective sisterhood. For the idea to resonate with women in Australia we needed to reinvent it and do something no sanitary brand has done before.

To break the category conventions of warrior women and attractive girls without a care in the world, we used a group of women outside our target market. Bold, irreverent, and unexpectedly relevant.

We simply asked questions, and they did the rest. In a series of intimate, one-on-one interviews with a documentary filmmaker, ‘The Matriarchs” fielded questions with a hilarity and grace young women could learn from and laugh with. This all took place on a small, closed set, to make sure our Matriarchs were comfortable enough to share their most honest answers. Most importantly, it was all unscripted – and good thing, too. We ended up with hours of uncensored life lessons we could have never written ourselves.

From this, we created an always-on tapestry of empowering content across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Instagram stories that ran from May 2018 to December 2018. Each video heroed a different piece of advice or product, which helped us target people based on their online behavior and tell a richer story to the most relevant audience possible.

65 million impressions (that’s 65 million young women getting a confidence boost from our matriarchs) across the campaign, with a 36% above-average completion rate. And it turns out when you stand for something positive, young women respond.

We had a 14% increase in consideration (best in class range) & 28% lift in Ad Recall - YouTube Brand Lift study. 28.89% sales uplift from heavy shoppers & 18% incremental sales from brand inactives (Quantium/Facebook closed loop survey).

The campaign helped to drive a turnaround in Carefree’s tampon business, returning share point change of +1.4pts (IRI MAT23/12/18)

Retained dominance in liners with 50.5% share

Amongst recallers - Matriarchs perceived to be differentiated vs other SanPro in terms advertising, laughable, with strong talkability.

36% uplift in completion rate (Vs J&J benchmark)