Ad Team Uses WikiLeaks To Sell Sanitary Napkins

There is something that just tickles me about good advertising. Sometimes, I’ll even go as far as to purchase a product as props to the ad staff -- not because I need or want the product itself. Does that make me a sucker? Probably.

Back in grade nine, I graduated from maxi pads to tampons on a trip to Mexico with my family. I learned the hard, embarrassing, and very public way that pads don’t take well to water. After I removed the winged anvil from my bikini bottoms, and the laughing boys from the swim-up bar went away, I cried for half-an-hour in my cabana, and never looked back.

However, a new ad for sanitary napkins out of Pakistan has seriously got me considering a reversion.

Butterfly brand women’s products have been getting a lot of due buzz for their ultra clever campaign. Their new sales slogan, WikiLeaks... Butterfly Doesn’t, has marked the blogosphere this week, and I’m totally in love.

We came across the ad on one of our favourite “news” sites, Jezebel, and have since seen it hashtagged, forwarded, and blogged about at mass. And it’s only noon.

So what makes a good ad? Is it a spokesperson? Sometimes. I could care less about the Lincoln MKX, but with Mad Men’s John Slattery -- aka The Silver Fox (No? Just me?) -- behind the wheel, I’d seriously consider parking that puppy in my driveway... If I ever get my drivers license, or a driveway.

Is it the music? It can be. On a recent trip to New York City, every single cab in town showed a Hilfiger commercial on their little Taxi TV screens featuring a catchy Vampire Weekend song. By the end of my weekend in The Big Apple, I couldn’t tell if I wanted a pine green cable crew-neck, or if I just liked Vampire Weekend again.

But what makes this billboard, mounted downtown in Karachi so appealing? It’s the timeliness, the cleverness, and the simplicity of the whistle-stop.

Rather than showing women riding horses, lacing up to play tennis, or even taking a satirical approach a la UbyKotex, where a smart-alecky Rachel Leigh Cooke look-a-like pokes fun at other advertising mechanisms, this company capitalizes on the present.

Short, sweet, and easy - exactly what all women wish their periods to be.

What do you think of this ad? Smart? Silly? Or still sticking to tampons?

Carli Mia
		About the author:
		Carli Mia, also known as Carli Rothman, also known as Carli Stephens, also known as Carli Mia Stephens Rothman, is a prairie-girl to the core, and a graduate of the Ryerson School of Journalism. She currently lives in downtown Toronto, and acts as the Director of Content for WOMAN.ca!
	Read More >>