The Society-Shifting Power of Essity and AMV BBDO’s 10-Year Partnership

A decade ago ago, you probably hadn’t heard of Essity. You may have had an awareness of some of its brands such as TENA, Plenty or Libresse (Bodyform in the UK), but Tuomas Yrjölä, president of global brand, innovation and sustainability looks back at how far its brands have come since it began a creative partnership with UK agency AMV BBDO. “I think we were fairly unknown as a company,” he says. “We did have pockets of success in various countries where some of our brands were known, but it was uneven from a global point of view.”

A decade on, the company primarily built on providing absorbent products for health and hygiene purposes is arguably more known for the impact that it has had on society and the way we see our bodies and our relationships to them. Campaigns like ‘Bloodnormal’ for Libresse, ‘Last Lonely Menopause’ for TENA and ‘Xmess’ for Plenty have changed our perceptions, dismantling taboos and encouraging acceptance.

But none of that was the original plan; 10 years ago the health and hygiene company’s vision was simply to become more global and raise the bar in terms of how it drives creativity, brand building and innovation. They just wanted to do better marketing. Tuomas remembers people at the time saying “Imagine if one day we were winning an award in Cannes.” Now its brands have dozens.

This newfound ambition to work with the best brand-building creative companies led to AMV BBDO. Margaux Revol, strategy partner and head of brand at the agency was joined around the same time and she reflects on the industry’s perspective at the time. “The industry at large was still starting to take in the learnings of the IPA around brand building,” she says. “Everyone was in a place where it felt like everything had to be about product functionality.” In that context, Essity’s ambitions lined up with the shifts to come between then and now. “The work has become increasingly emotional,” observes Margaux. “And by emotional I don't just mean something that makes you cry. It's pulling all the different emotions that are relevant to an insight. Having more trust in what is going to make people tick, rather than only doing product-out advertising. That's the journey. And I don't think it's just a journey that's true of Essity. I think the industry has been moving in that direction as well.” 

Tuomas’ first week in the company saw him in a meeting with AMV BBDO. Working on the femcare category, he was speaking to the agency about the first Libresse campaign they would do together – 'Live Fearless'. “It was all about how our brand can help women+ live overcome self doubt, shame and fear that the category's brands had built.” He reminds us of the period product cliches at the time: “happy women in white pants roller skating.” This campaign ran counter to those tropes. 

“In all honesty, it wasn't a smashing success from the get go,” admits Tuomas. While client and agency all loved the idea, it was hard to execute. Having built local brands they had tried to create one global campaign straight away, the company was still fairly product-innovation centric while the idea was very broad and it was a new agency relationship. “So to try to do all of that together was very loaded,” he says. “It's no surprise that it maybe wasn't a slam dunk. But it started the whole journey because we saw the power of the idea, which led into all the great work about breaking the taboos of the category. It all started with this.”

Zooming out, Margaux brings her strategy expertise to bear, noting that it’s often useful for a brand to understand what in its category is commoditised and what is underexploited. “In the case of communications, topics and trends, we realised that confidence in this category was completely commoditised,” she says. “It's not just that everyone was selling the same kind of products; it was that everyone was selling their emotional benefit in the same way. So even though we did a step change with 'Live Fearless' and it was true, the problem was it didn't feel unique enough. We started digging underneath the surface of the lack of confidence that seems to start happening when your hormones completely change at teen age.”

AMV BBDO and Essity changed their platform to include a societal truth: “You're not born with a lack of confidence. It's something that you learn from culture and society, and you integrate into your being,” says Margaux. “And that's the biggest source of your insecurities as a woman+. It's not just because suddenly you're becoming a bit shy and introverted. This has helped us identify a huge number of enemies to go after that confidence in general was not giving us. It's not just what are you trying to promote, it's also what are you trying to fight against. That helped us become more laser focused.”

With this in place, the next Libresse campaign ‘Red.Fit’ came as a response to a cultural moment. At the Australian Open, one of the tennis players, Heather Watson, had been playing less well and mentioned that it was because she was dealing with ‘girl things'. She alluded to her period without wanting to say the word. “That was a really big lightbulb moment,” says Margaux. The AMV BBDO team started digging and began to understand the problem: “If you're petrified of saying the word itself, what does it mean about your entire relationship with it?” 

Realising “it felt like it was such a huge blocker in women's wellbeing,” says Margaux, 'Red.Fit' specifically focused on the relationship between periods and sports. As part of the campaign there was partnership with St. Mary’s University, Twickenham and University College London (UCL), Frame gyms, Leon and an Olympic coach. “It was a holistic approach to how we help solve these problems so girls and women+ feel like they can keep exercising during their periods,” say Margaux.

Tuomas reflects that ‘Red.Fit’ was when purpose began to take on a core function for Essity brands, not just alongside other product-led advertising. “I still remember when I saw it the first time because Martina Poulopati, who was the leading for us internally, brought me into a room. We watched it on this big screen and I almost fell off the chair because it was so powerful. It was so different from anything that we had done because it was storytelling, very emotional, there was no product demo. And it was a long film, which is very cinematic. It was something that we had never seen. So it was a big moment. Then our challenge was how we get markets to activate it. We found some courageous partners in the markets who held hands and off we went.”

The power of that campaign propelled it around the globe. “We talked at the time that digital doesn't have any borders,” says Tuomas. “All of a sudden it was talked about in Brazil, Japan, even in markets where we didn't even have business. It really became talk of the town. We saw the potential it had. We also saw what it did to the brand, how our share of search as a challenger in Europe [increased], all of a sudden we became more top of mind. We learned a tonne and it made a much bigger splash than we could expect.”

            

The foundation laid, it was time for ‘Bloodnormal’ to completely change the femcare category – and how society viewed periods – forever. 

“It's changed everything,” says Margaux, “But for me what's really key is that often as a shortcut we say blood is red not blue. Obviously we changed the colour. But I don't think the campaign would have been as revolutionary if it had just been that and the rest around it was the same. I think what made it entirely revolutionary is that we told the story of 'what if periods were normal?' Every person in that campaign acts as if it was what it should be, which is entirely casual. 

“it wasn't just an aesthetic colour change or just a shock-tactics provocation. It was a beautiful envisioning of what if the world entirely changed its view around periods and turned the tables, so that instead of women+ feeling disgusted, you could start understanding that your body is healthy. What does it mean if you see the world like that?”

 

           

In 2018, ‘Viva La Vulva’ weaved together a collage of inventive visual metaphors for the vulva as a celebratory way to challenge the insecurity many women+ feel about their genitals. Joyful as it was, the strategy was serious. “Libresse knew the huge potential in understanding women+ more holistically than purely just periods,” says Margaux. “So expanded the portfolio to really cater to all their needs, throughout the cycle. 'Viva La Vulva' was actually the first big campaign to go beyond just periods into any-day care for that part of your body that a lot of women+ feel ashamed of. The ongoing strategy has been that expansion in the offering and in the target audiences, so that we don't just represent women in their 20s. You don't lose your period or your vagina after age 30, so it was an acknowledgment that we had to target a broader amount of women+ and we had to cater to them more holistically.”

 

‘Wombstories’ took that ambition deeper. “Going hand in hand with it was a storytelling ambition that was a quest for meaning,” says Margaux. “That means not just going from periods to vulvas to uteruses. It's actually not about the anatomy; it's about the depth of experience that people encounter and acknowledging angles that can be extra relevant to certain products or ranges of products.” 

In the case of 2022’s 'Periodsomnia', AMV BBDO identified that Libresse's night range, particularly in Europe, was not gaining its fair share of the segment. “So it was what you call in marketing a 'Sleeping Beauty',” says Margaux, fully aware of the excellent pun. “It had potential but it was not exploiting it. But quite literally the category was treating night period products as a 'Sleeping Beauty' – women were this ‘perfect’ image, very meaningless, lacking any insight. This is the perfect example of how we married the two to shake it up and stop pretending it's all perfect. Because the reason why you need night products that deliver is the night is messy. And I think this is a good example of that strategy.”

Societal purpose and business results were intertwined throughout this journey. Tuomas maintains that Essity’s commitment to growth throughout its relationship with AMV BBDO has been relentless. “We saw that the barriers that the brands had built between the consumer and the brand were a real barrier for growth. When we were reducing those barriers by normalising the category or understanding the consumers’ needs better, we saw what a driver of growth that is and how it brings new users to our brands. When we saw the commercial and business link of how creativity fuels growth and brings new users to our brand, it became kind of a flywheel, which then just kept spinning faster and faster and started creating more and more ideas.” 

The numbers back this up. When Essity and AMV BBDO started this partnership, its femcare business was around 450 million Euros. Last year it crossed 1 billion. “It's not only because of all the great creative – obviously a lot that goes into it, but we're celebrating great growth that the creative enables,” says Tuomas. “That commercial success has enabled a lot of the longevity, space and freedom to keep creating and driving because when it works, everyone wants more.”

Femcare isn’t the only part of Essity’s absorbency empire though. “The inspiring work in that category  paved the way and showed us what creativity can do when we understand the consumer better than anyone else and bring it to life with creative,” says Tuomas. 

TENA and Plenty have both followed that path, also driving incredible growth with taboo-busting tactics. “We've found ways to understand better what the barriers are. Incontinence is a very taboo-loaded category as well,” says Tuomas. “Probably the biggest taboo is on men, where we've done great work in terms of normalising that category through creativity with AMV BBDO. And it's driven significant growth to the business. 

All of this even changed the whole of Essity’s company purpose, which became 'Breaking Barriers to Well-being'. “That became the rallying cry, not only in marketing but across the board,” says Tuomas. “Everyone at Essity is a barrier breaker. If you work in manufacturing, sales or public affairs you're breaking barriers, welcoming more people to hygiene and wellbeing.”

The most recent brand to follow this path with AMV BBDO has been kitchen towel brand Plenty. “Tissue has a very manufacturing-centric history,” says Tuomas. “It was seen as commoditised and can you really differentiate? What AMV BBDO's proven with all the work on Plenty, which started with 'Xmess' celebrating the messes of Christmas and smashing some of the stereotypes, is that you can bring creativity to any category. We always say there are no boring categories, just boring marketeers. I think we've proven that there too.” 

10 years ago, Margaux remembers the reluctance that agency people would have to work on brands like Essity’s. “You're the victim of your own prejudice,” she says. “The subject was meant to be unpalatable and the categories were doing extremely boring work. The people who started working on it knew there was actually an amazing opportunity to change that. And now Essity is a real magnet at AMV BBDO. These are the most coveted accounts within the building because everyone knows that if they can get their hands on a brief, they will probably make the best work of their careers.” 

It's also been a great way of attracting new business for the agency. “Brands come in every day saying they'd love to do what we've done with the Essity brands,” says Margaux. “It's also lovely for us to just have now-iconic brands that are side by side in our building, such as Essity and Guinness, and we've had such a long-standing relationship with them. It feels like they are admiring each other and we love feeling like we're keeping them in good company with each other through our work.” Not to mention that if you spill your pint of Guinness, you can mop it up with a few sheets of Plenty.

Facing the future, the partnership looks set to continue leading the charge for the sort of marketing all the best companies want to do. “You will keep seeing the sort of deep thinking and high-level creativity that you've seen before, across the three brands,” says Margaux. “You will also see that AMV BBDO and Essity are partnering increasingly on projects that go beyond comms briefs and that are there to also solve more general business problems. We have a partnership that goes more upstream. We have closer and closer relationships with the local markets to help almost diagnose how the comms can work even better for them. So there's a high level and a granular level of collaboration that has been developing that will keep going. We've also been working more and more in providing all the digital content strategy to ensure that the brands in markets are also living the purpose through day-to-day topics and behaviour. This is something that has been happening increasingly on Libresse, TENA and Plenty. So I think hopefully you'll also see more consistency across those.”

Tuomas is looking forward to what Essity can do together with AMV BBDO to build on 10 years of collaboration. “It's evolved from a comms partnership to a true business partnership. We'll keep breaking barriers, no question.”