The period is political - Activist advertising of female sanitary products

The period is political

Activist advertising of female sanitary products

Amanda Pettersson Malmö University 2018 Master thesis (one year)

Media and Communication studies: 


Collaborative media, culture and creative industries

Supervisor: Tina Askanius Examinator: Temi Odumosu

Table of content

4.1 Femvertising in a theoretical context 12

Transmedia storytelling 17

4.4 Discourse theory 19

5.0 Methodology 21

5.1 Empirical material 21

5.2 Discourse analysis as method 24

5.4 Ethics 26 5.5 Limitations 27 6.0 Analysis 28 6.1 Active/healthy femininity 29 6.2 Responsibility 40 7.0 Conclusion 47 References 49

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand the use of political messages as part of a branding strategy

through a discourse analysis. The empirical material consists of two campaigns advertising female sanitary products; Always #LikeAGirl (2014) and Libresse Blood Normal (2017), with a purpose to understand the incorporation and the adaptation of activist and feminist discourse in these

commercial campaigns. What happens to feminism as a political project and struggle when its key ideas and discourses are co-opted by market forces, and how this kind of advertising is used in the process of building brands.The theoretical framework consists of critical perspectives on Postfeminism, Counterculture in relation to consumer culture and Transmedia storytelling. The campaigns are understood in a Swedish context. In the analysis two nodal points are identified; Active/healthy femininity and Responsibility, where the subject positions within the campaigns and the understanding of the subject positions of the campaigns in a marketing context are explored. By formulating different (political) problems in their marketing, Libresse and Always has the discursive power to position themselves as part of the solution to the problem of girls and

women’s low self-esteem. On one hand, the solution includes consuming female sanitary products or interact with the brand on social media. On the other hand this means that the brands position themselves as political actors, advocating women’s rights.

Keywords: Femvertising, feminist advertising, female sanitary products, menstruation, discourse analysis, Sweden

1.0 Introduction

I remember my own first experience of being the target group for female sanitary products somewhere in the early 2000s. By the age of eleven I received a flowered box in the mail with samples of tampons and brochures with handy tips like how I could hide the tampon in my bag to make sure that no one would notice that I was on my period. I can still recall the shameful feelings that the box gave me. Keeping my period private and being discrete around it was something I early understood as one (of many) important parts of being a girl in a successful and socially acceptable way. The advertising on female sanitary products at that time was filled with very hygienic blue ”blood” and was centered around feeling safe without risk of bleeding through the sanitary product. This approach to menstruation could be seen not only in advertising campaigns, it was also present in popular culture and even in the biology books in school. Then something changed.

Books, comics and new portraits of periods in popular culture addressed to both younger girls and women, with a straight-forward focus on normalizing menstruation and trying to understand its cultural position in society. Liv Strömqvist’s comic album Kunskapens frukt (2014) aimed to explore menstruation in culture from a historical perspective, while the comedian Clara Henry was focused on increasing the knowledge about menstruation for a younger generation in her book Ja

jag har mens hurså? (2015). In Sweden, the culture around menstruation all of a sudden became a

part of the societal feminist conversation.

This created a golden opportunity for the advertising of female sanitary products to follow along and create campaigns raising awareness on the new cultural perspectives on menstruation. All of a sudden, political awareness became a strategic move to receive a lot of attention to their campaigns. This would be a way of advertising female sanitary products that was completely new and different than in their previous campaigns. This thesis examines how two campaigns; Like a girl (Always 2014) and Blood normal (Libresse 2017), both advertise female sanitary products and have a use of feministic messages as part of their marketing strategy. How can we understand feminist messages in advertising through these campaigns?

It would be impossible to say what factors would lead to the other when it comes to the shift in the societal conversation about menstruation in a Swedish context and therefore what has influenced

the campaigns. In line with Eisend, I understand advertising as a mirroring of society, where it is viewed as a confirmation of existing norms rather than a challenge to them (Eisend 2010 in

Åkestam et al. 2017). Through analyzing advertising as this mirroring of our society, we can be able to understand the norms and regulations of talking about politics, feminism and menstruation on a societal level.

1.1 Purpose

This thesis aim of this thesis is to understand the discursive construction of political messages as part of a branding strategy in a Swedish context. The empirical material consists of two campaigns advertising female sanitary products, and the purpose is to understand the incorporation and the adaptation of activist and feminist discourse in these commercial campaigns. What happens to feminism as a political project and struggle when its key ideas and discourses are co-opted by market forces, and how is this kind of advertising found useful when building brands?

The campaigns will be analyzed through the lens of postfeminism, counterculture in marketing, critical perspective on promotional culture and transmedia storytelling. The method used to analyze the material will be a discourse analysis drawing on Laclau and Mouffe.

1.2 Research questions

This thesis aims to respond to the following questions:

How can we understand ’femvertising’ as an evolving media practice through the campaigns of Libresse and Always?

How can we use discourse analysis to understand the subject positions and marketing strategies enacted by these two companies through their transmedia storytelling campaigns?

2.0 Background

To understand the development of Libresses and Always marketing, we need to turn our focus to how their earlier campaigns has been designed. When looking at campaigns from 1990s and the early 2000s, it is clear that menstrual sanitary products and periods were directed to female stakeholders with a focus on hygiene and objective information about the actual product. In 1

Capitalizing on the Curse: The Business of Menstruation (2006), Elizabeth Kissing explores

different features of the business and marketing of female sanitary products from a historical

perspective. She argues that marketing and the cultural position of menstruations circles around that ”[o]ne must keep menstruation concealed, to prevent one’s carefully constructed front of femininity from becoming damaged by the taint of menstrual pollution.” (Kissling 2006:17). This approach to menstruation and the taboos around it could be linked a long way way back in history, where menstruation among other things was understood as a curse (Hufnagel 2012:19). Menstruation has in many contexts also been left out from history where "even the genres of Greek literature that deal quite openly with the most intimate areas of human experience are silent on the subject of

menstruation” (ibid). This patriarchal view on menstruation has of course shifted in its form during different periods of time, but could still be linked back to gender power orders in society where women’s lived experiences and perspectives are understood as less important and sometimes even threatening.

In terms of advertising of female sanitary products, the content would therefore rather focus on social values than the actual product. Examples of these values could be health, freshness, status and sexuality (Kissling 2006:12). Kissing argues further that ”[i]n these ads, menstruation is always a problem. It is a hygiene crisis that one must clean up, in secret, so that one’s public projection of ideal femininity is not damaged or polluted.” (ibid). This approach to menstruation has been seen in Always and Libresses previous marketing campaigns, but would be visible in a different way in #LikeAGirl (Always 2014) and Blood Normal (Libresse 2017), which makes it interesting to look into how these campaigns are designed in a contrasting way. The values used in advertising is changing over time, and by trying to understand these values we could be able to say something about these shifts and changes on a societal level. The use of political messages in advertising can

Examples of previous campaigns focusing on function and hygiene could be Always Super (2001), Always

be seen in various campaigns such as Benettons Unhate campaign (2011), H&Ms Close the Loop (2016) and Pepsis Live for Now Moments Anthem (2017), all drawing on political language, messages and emotions as part of their marketing strategy. The term ’femvertising' aims to understand the incorporation of feminist, female positive and empowering advertising addressing women. By including messages of empowerment as part of a marketing strategy, the brand would end up not just selling a product or an emotion, power becomes part purchase as well (Kapoor and Munjal 2017:2).

In the cultural context of Sweden, there are of course many different factors of politics and popular culture affecting the societal conversation about menstruation, and therefore also what positions the campaigns could play in relation to other messages. But how did the context shift from clinical commercials with blue blood to Liv Strömquist’s graphic artworks on periods in Stockholm’s subway? (Hunt 2017). Liv Strömquists radio show on Sommar P1 (2013) and her following comic 2

book Kunskapens frukt (Strömquist 2014) are often highlighted as two important cultural events in the societal conversation about menstruation in Sweden. The book and the radio show was the start of a new way of approaching the conversation about menstruation and culture by understanding the historical perspective of the phenomenon in a critical way. The book reflects on menstruation in different cultural contexts and links our understanding of it to patriarchy. If males menstruated, how would the cultural perspective on the physiological and psychological aspects of having your period look like? (Strömquist 2014). The Swedish YouTuber and comedian Clara Henry has played an important role on approaching a younger audience through her platform on Youtube and by writing the book Ja, jag har mens, hurså? (Henry 2015). The book focuses on educating the readers about menstruation and questions the norms around it. Clara Henry was recruited as a ambassador for the brand Always campaign ”Like a Girl” between 2014 and 2015, where she did sponsored videos and tweets for the brand (Henry 2014).

Another interesting factor is the change in the market for female sanitary products. The menstrual cup, an innovation first introduced and produced in the 1930s was really hitting the Swedish market (SVT 2015). The marketing of menstrual cups is entered pushing on the advantages of a reusable product, from both an environmental and an economical perspective. This has of course affected the marketing of non-reusable female sanitary products, probably not too much when it comes to sales numbers, but the menstrual cup has changed the game of marketing these kind of products. All of a

“Sommar i P1” is a radio show where a chosen person is given free hands to speak about whatever they

2

sudden there is a possibility to make a active choice of sanitary products which in itself has

contributed to the construction of identity. The shifts and changes in how advertising could be done is a process of constant change and development (Gulbrandsen and Just 2016:209), where

Influencers and social media are important features of advertising during the time of these two campaigns.

3.0 Literature review

I will now introduce and review previous empirical research on the topic of female sanitary products in media, femvertising and activism in advertising that is of particular relevance to this study. In the end of this section, I position this study in relation to previous research and describe how this study contributes to the field.

Critical perspectives on advertising of female sanitary products


Previous research on menstruation commercials in media includes both audience studies and

analysis of texts and content. In ‘Menstrual Knowledge and Taboo TV Commercials: Effects on

Self-Objectification among Italian and Swedish Women’ (2017), Sparado et al. (2017) compare how

self-objectification, knowledge and taboo about menstruation are constructed in an Italian and a Swedish context by examining the effects of different kinds of advertising. Their findings show a difference in how Italian and Swedish audiences receive the messages, where the Swedish participants were not as negatively affected by stereotypical expectations and the feeling of taboo as the Italian

participants (2017:7). The study could be placed in the field of audience studies where the audience experiences of these TV Commercials are the main focus. The conclusion of this study is that the variations on how different audiences received the messages could be understood by the difference in sexual and menstrual education in both countries, where the Swedish participants had more knowledge about the topic and was therefore less affected by the taboo (2017:1). Since TV commercials for female sanitary products are different across countries, the study used the Italian commercial with subtitles for the Swedish participants to be able to measure the audiences’ reactions. The authors argue that this could affect the result of the study and would suggest for further research to create a prototype similar to existing TV commercials which could be able to provide more reliable results (2017:8).


A study more focused on the content of the ads is found in ‘Taming the shame: Policing excretions

and body fluids in advertisements for hygiene products’ (2013) in which Kama and Barak-Brandes

looks into how bodily excretions are constructed in advertising but also how this could be linked to how shame is constituted. This study takes place in an Israeli context where newspapers are the main material. Their findings indicated that ‘shame or regulation of the body’s orifices and waste do not constitute a frame for promoting hygiene products: cleaning one’s body for hygienic purposes is covert, and adverts reflect a hedonistic cult of the self. This apotheosis of the body implies that pampering oneself requires constant investment, including the purchase of products that serve a hygienic purpose only incidentally.’ (2013:582).


Previous research on feminist messages in marketing also described as ’femvertising’ covers campaigns mostly on beauty products and sanitary products, which are both directed very

specifically to the target group women. The previous research on femvertising could be divided into two categories, one focusing on understanding target groups’ experiences of the campaigns and the other one analysing the content of the campaigns through different versions of visual and text analysis. Millard's (2009) study of Dove’s ’Campaign For Real beauty’ in Performing Beauty:

Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign contains individual and group interviews with sixteen women in

Canada about their thoughts and feelings around the Dove campaign and the general performing of beauty. The findings showed that participants performed beauty in different ways in their everyday life ‘[w]here all of these “acts” involve social action and interaction; beauty, the body, and self care not preexisting or intrinsic qualities but negotiated and created through a revolving process of expression and reception’ (Millard 2009:165). Millard argues that the Dove campaigns’ intentions of making women feel better about their bodies do not have to be ’false’ or ’untrue’, but it is important to be aware of the purpose behind and perspective from which they use the message - to sell their products (2009:165). 


Another example of a content-based analysis of the use of feminist messages in advertising focusing specifically on context is ‘Local limits of postfeminism advertising: The case of Orkid’s #Likeagirl

campaign’ Nas (2016) looks for post-feminist tendencies in the Like a girl-campaign from a Turkish

perspective and ties it to a global discourse of post-feminism. The findings of the study show that the global perspective on post-feminism helps us to understand how the narratives can change on a

local level, and that ‘[t]he complexities behind the local adaptions of postfeminist sensibilities necessitate new conceptualizations of glocal postfeminism’ (Nas 2016:841).

In Advertising “like a girl”: Toward a better understanding of “femvertising” and its effects, Åkestam et al. (2017) examines the effects of femvertising in relation to the psychological term reactance, i.e. the positive feeling of having alternatives (2017:796). The study draws on two quantitative studies to measure the ad reactance in a Swedish context. The first study included a campaign with female empowering messages specifically made for the study. The campaign was exposed to 149 randomly picked women that looked through the campaign and then filled out a questionnaire about their thoughts and experience with it (2017:798). The second study where 211 women participated, was a between-subjects experiment where YouTube was used to show

femvertising campaigns in tandem with campaigns showing more traditional female portraits, to then fill out a questionnaire about how they perceived stereotypes in the different campaigns (2017:799). Both studies showed that femvertising strengthens the feeling of reactance through avoiding stereotypes in their campaigns. Åkestam et al. (2017) connects this to a societal level where ‘female portrayals in advertising have followed changes in society, rather than the other way around.’ (2017:796). The shift in how we experience portraits of women in advertising could therefore more be seen as a reaction of the shifts in society. Åkestam et al. would claim that this does not mean that feminism is dominating the Swedish society, rather that there is a trend where new types of messages are welcomed. Finally, they claim that femvertising has been overlooked in academia, and would like to see the term used as a advertising appeal rather than an ideological movement (2017:802).


A more historical view on feminism in advertising and popular culture in general can be found in

We Were Feminists Once, From Riot girls Cover girl in which Zeisler (2016) frames the relation

between advertising and the different waves of feminism with a starting point in 1960’s commercials for cigarettes to how celebrities as Beyoncé and Taylor Swift represent feminism today. Zeisler questions the use of feminist messages in marketing by saying that ‘marketplace feminism is in many ways about just branding feminism as an identity that everyone can and should consume. That’s not a bad thing in theory, but in practice, it tends to involve highlighting only the most appealing features of a multifaceted set of movements. It kicks the least sensational and most complex issues under a rug and assures them that we’ll get back to them once everybody’s on

board.’ (Zeisler 2016:73). This could be seen as a description of the watering down of political messages by using them in a marketing context, which could be tied back to Åkestam et al. (2017) claiming of feminist messages in advertising should not be seen as feminism is a settled matter, rather another strategy to approach the target group (2017:796). Or as Zeisler puts it; ‘don’t make women feel like shit and they’re more likely to buy your product’ (2016:30).


In summary, what we know about femvertising and the marketing of female sanitary products is that there is a shift in how the advertising is done and how it is received by the audience depending on context. Studies also show that the audience expresses positive feelings to the less stereotypical portraits of women, which could be linked to ongoing trends in society, which offers a new way of portraying women. We know that we have to understand the global and local perspective of these campaigns to understand how these messages are received in different contexts and its ongoing general discussion around menstruation and/or feminism. The term femvertising should not be seen as an indicator of an equal society where feminism has a clear role and definition, it should rather be seen as a reflection of a societal trend where anything can be feminist as long as someone says it is (Zeisler 2016:61), as the term ’feminism’ in today’s society can mean many different things at the same time.


Previous research offers different perspectives on the advertising of female sanitary products, where one major focus has been on understanding the audience’s reaction to the campaigns. When it comes to understanding the content of the campaigns the focus has been more on stereotypical and traditional ways of advertising these products, and what these campaigns say about social

perceptions of menstruation.

This study focuses on the content in two campaigns for female sanitary products using political messages as part of their marketing strategy. Femvertising or female empowerment as a strategy in marketing, with a specific focus on content and to understand and address this content/trend drawing on critical theories on consumer culture, counter culture and the convergence of the two would therefore be my contribution to the field. By analyzing the content in two campaigns advertising female sanitary products through the lens of postfeminism and counterculture in marketing, this study aims to say something about how femvertising is done and why it is done in that particular way in these specific campaigns, understood from a Swedish context.

4.0 Theoretical framework

In this section, the theoretical framework in this thesis is introduced. Postfeminism, counter culture in relation to consumer culture and situated knowledge becomes theoretical approaches to

understand and explore the term femvertising. Discourse theory and transmedia storytelling, will be introduced in the second section of the theoretical framework, where the discourse theory aims to give an epistemological background to discourse analysis and the theories of transmedia storytelling helps us to understand how campaigns can be designed to make the stakeholders engage and

interact with the brand.

4.1 Femvertising in a theoretical context

To explore the term ’femvertising’, I will start by introducing postfeminism to understand how feminism in a simplified way could be used in a marketing process. Postfeminism as a term has been used since early 1980s, and could both be understood as ’after feminism’ or as conceptual term that refers to a process where the historical understanding of feminism as a political movement is undermined (Kissling 2013:591). This thesis will be based on the understanding of postfeminism as the latter, a conceptual term trying to understand feminism through its position in popular culture and the political influences. Compared to earlier waves of feminism, postfeminism focuses on the freedom of choice rather than societal structures and is often linked closely to neo-liberalism, marketplace and popular culture (2013:491). Postfeminism shifts focus from traditional feminism’s understandings of complex political identities and social change through different strategies, it rather means that feminism already is taken into account and the political discussion around it is not as interesting any more (ibid). Postfeminism is based on the neoliberal understanding of the

individual as ” all are on an equal footing of individuality, seen through the lenses of rationality and market values” (Kissling 2013:491). This would mean that women’s achievements and failures depend only on the individual, rather than a societal structure (ibid). The perspective of the individual’s power over their own life and situation is the fundamental and central concept of postfeminism. The idea of structures in society that would affect more groups than others would be understood as an old and irrelevant view on society and would also conflict the idea that every individual has the same opportunities in life.

Another central concept in postfeminism is the role of the female body as the main arena where femininity and sexuality is performed in a normative way. The body is an ongoing project where the femininity is symbolized and performed by activities such as hair removal, make up, weight loss etc. with the aim to constantly maintain a sexy body. This could be compared to a historical perspective on performing femininity, where motherhood and caring has been more central to the normative female role. What should be kept in mind though is that these two roles do not exclude one another, it implies that a woman should be both sexy and motherly (2013:492). The ongoing project of performing femininity is tightly linked to consumerism, where women ”must seek and follow the advice of experts to reform their inadequate lives, usually through an increase or change in consumer behaviors.” (Kissling 2013:492). There is an important link between consumerism and the female body, since the maintaining of a ’sexy body’ requires various products, where consuming them is central in a postfeminist perspective and can be linked back to the free market and the rational choice in the neoliberal idea tradition. Postfeminism is criticized for simplifying feminism as a concept in order to create something sellable. While in second wave feminism women fought for their political rights, this is seen as already achieved from a post feministic perspective and would therefore be outdated and stifling. Postfeminism offer a’positive’ feminism constructed around empowerment and consumer culture (Braithwaite 2002:38), where everyone is responsible for their own position in society, beyond structures and gender power orders.


As mentioned earlier, there are different definitions of the term postfeminism and different ways of making it useful for feminist media and culture studies. The term is often analyzed in the field of media and communication since the concept plays an important role in all kinds of media such as marketing campaigns as in films, magazines etc. The term is often used in a critical way and has been useful in the field of media and culture studies in general and as a way of understanding advertisement in particular. If feminism is about empowering women and make them feel that they can become whomever they want to be by consuming, then postfeminism could be useful for commercial purposes. This could also be understood in relation to the term ’femvertising’, introduced in the Literature review section where empowering female messages are used in advertising as a different way to approach the target group women (Åkestam et al. 2017:802). Gill (2007) argues that we should see postfeminism as a transformation in feminism as well as in media culture and that the theoretical framework should focus in the relation between these two

Moving on to counterculture in marketing, that as part of the theoretical framework in this thesis helps us understand how political messages could function in a marketing context, and to identify the tensions and the problematic aspects of this. In The Rebell Sell - How the Counterculture

became consumer culture (2004) Heath and Potter explore the relationship between counterculture

and consumer culture in a western context. Counterculture would be any critical political

movement, for example feminism, the environmental movement, the anti-capitalism movement or the alternative-music scene could all be examples of counterculture; expressions of culture

criticizing or being an alternative to the mainstream (consumer) culture. Heath and Potter imply that counterculture movements have misunderstood the capitalist system and mainstream culture that they say that they are against, and that the countercultural groups or movements contribute themselves to capitalism by being a part of the very same system: ”we argue that decades of

countercultural rebellion have failed to change anything because the theory of society on which the countercultural idea rests is false” (2004:10). Heath and Potter show that because there is no overarching system to criticize, the culture cannot be broken as the counterculture has claimed it to be. They argue further that there is no such thing as ’the system’, we should rather view it as a ”hodgepodge of social institutions, most tentatively thrown together, which distribute the benefits and burden of social cooperation in ways that sometimes is positively

counterproductive.” (2004:10).

Consumer culture is a fundamental part of how we navigate through the way we understand the world, counterculture would therefore consist in consuming the opposite or another version of what the mainstream culture is currently consuming. Counterculture would mean that one would

consume items other than what mainstream culture offers (2004:5). Like the fish in the sea would not describe the life under water as wet, neither would we describe the fundamental parts of our culture that we all live in, this is just part of our reality. Consuming becomes unavoidable in our society and culture and would therefore rather be a practice adapted to how we build our identity for others to see (2004:7). The identification of the consumer societies relation to mass society would function as a filter, and we would have a hard time seeing another way of structuring our lives and our community (2004:105).

Counterculture would not only be a part of the consumer culture, it would also be a useful tool to sell things. Heath and Potter state that this process started when coolness became the way that we value, sort and structure people in our society, replacing class(2004:200). This shift happened somewhere in the 1970’s, and from there we could see how political messages and counterculture have played and do still play an important role in strategical marketing (2004:205). Heath and Potter show that the ’creative class’ is the one ruling culture and the economic landscape by setting the norms and the agendas for what could be considered to be cool (2004:206). The economic wealth would therefore be less interesting; ”[u]nlike so-called bourgeois values, which are basically an imitation of feudal social norms, hip values are a direct expression of the spirit of

capitalism” (2004:206). The incorporation/adaptation of activist and feminist discourse in

commercial campaigns could therefore be understood in relation to this shift. The hip values would of course vary depending on context, but their power is highly relevant when designing commercial campaigns and make them stand out for the stakeholders. The use of counterculture in marketing campaigns could be a useful way of adding different kinds of emotional values authenticity to a brand or a campaign.

In Blowing up the brand (2010) Graham Knight looks into how counterculture or activism is used to build brands (2010:190). Knight argues that activism in marketing is useful since ”the credibility of voice becomes as important, if not more so, as the validity of what they say reveals the

importance of belief over knowledge as the critical determinant of resonance and rhetorical effect.” (2010:181). Knight’s argument on how activism in branding is exactly what Heath and Potter would criticize. By using a language that could be linked to political activism or engage in societal questions affecting your stakeholders, the brand would be seen as a authentic and important voice, beyond what we would expect from ’traditional’ advertising. This could make it hard to judge what could be considered advertising or what would be a political message. Perhaps it could be both and the lines between marketing and politics would become harder to identify? The question would mirror the complexity of the market where the brand as a sender would, through engaging in various social questions, also make their role more flexible as an actor. Knight states further that the commercial success of a brand lies in how many roles the brand could fill

(2010:182). The use of activism in relation to brand could not only be a way of making the role of the brand more flexible, it would also be a way to associate the brand with other brands, influencers, political questions and so on (ibid). The use of counterculture or activism could also be a way for

the stakeholders to position themselves in relation to the brand, since the stakeholder would build its own identity by navigating through different messages of consumer culture and counterculture (ibid). Knight argues that ”[t]he branding of activist identity becomes an important technique when issues, like commercial products, are subject to frequent turnover and fluctuation in terms of their meaning, relevance, and salience.” (2010:185). I understand the turnover and fluctuation in relation to the power of coolness, what kind of values would be considered as ’hip’ at the moment and how could these be incorporated in the process of building a brand? As a part of the theoretical

framework in this thesis, counterculture in marketing and brand activism are used to understand how activism and political messages could function in a marketing context and identify the tensions and the problematic aspects of this.

To position myself in relation to my material, I find the concept of ’situated knowledge’ useful. The term was introduced by the feminist scholar Donna Haraway (1988) and aims to explain how knowledge can never be neutral and therefore a researcher can never take the position of neutrality towards any material (Haraway 1988:576). In the same way as language or strategic communication are constructed and understood from and in a context, our understanding of the world is based on what we already know, which is different depending on from which position we understand society. Situated knowledge as a term is often used in feministic research to highlight the differences in experiences of society based on gender (Melin 2008:19). The experiences also vary within groups. For example, in the group women’s ethnicity, functionality and gender identity are factors that affect one’s position in terms of power where stereotyping and marginalization are examples on how some positions would mean less power than others. By reflecting on one’s position and knowledge, the researcher would not gain objectivity, but could strengthen the research by

acknowledging this by being transparent and aware about their own position (1988:583). Situated knowledge could also be seen as something strengthening of the research. If a researcher has experience in his or her field of research, the result can lead to a deeper understanding of the material. In relation to the discourse analysis, this view on subject positions and representation becomes an important part of the theoretical and methodological framework. To understand the different subject positions within the material and the filters in those who create sense and reality, this needs to be done in relation to the own perspective to legitimize the research.

By understanding one’s own filters to the world, one must be conscious about what one’s

perspective (2011:372). Reflecting on one’s knowledge in relation to the research can be done and described in different ways, I would see it as a way to understand one’s position and be aware of the perspectives that you do not carry one’s self. As a young white cis-woman, I can see people looking like me depicted in campaigns for menstrual sanitary products. I would also consider myself as part of the target group from the perspective of both brands. My cis-identity would make me reflect less on these assumptions and the normative (biological) femininity present in my material, compared to if I would have another gender identity such as transgender or non-binary. I see this as one of the most important thing in relation to the term situated knowledge, as a researcher I need to reflect on and acknowledge what I have experience and therefore gain knowledge and awareness of what experiences and positions I cannot represent myself.

The campaigns are understood from a Swedish context, but my political convictions and specific interest for feminist questions would probably mean that I look for specific details and see specific patterns that strengthens my personal perspective, opinions and believes. By reflecting on what I know and what I do not know in terms of experience and perspective, I can widen my perspectives by gaining more knowledge about other perspectives on my material. Throughout the research process this would remind me about implementing more perspectives than just my own. To position yourself towards your material would be important when working with qualitative methods and theories with a epistemological background in social constructivism. This would mean that I acknowledge myself as part of a reality that is constructed and that there is no such thing as objective knowledge or research.

Transmedia storytelling

As a part of the theoretical framework in this thesis, transmedia storytelling is used to understand the design of the campaigns from a strategical communication perspective, how can this way of marketing be a useful strategy when designing campaigns that could engage your stakeholders and make them interact with the brand? Several target groups could be identified throughout the two campaigns, where the campaigns would make use of different ways to engage their stakeholders.

Transmedia storytelling is a communication strategy that could be understood as a concept

Scolari 2012:7 in Gulbrandsen and Just 2016:208). The term aims to describe the process of designing campaigns that will involve your stakeholders and make them engage or interact with your material in different platforms (ibid). The transmedial use of different platforms would not mean that different messages are communicated in different places, rather that the overarching story that is told should strengthen the main story with supplementary stories (Gulbrandsen and Just 2016:209).

Social media is central in transmedia storytelling campaigns and the stakeholders will to participate are therefore very important, and would also be a important to use parts of the target group that are less likely to watch TV or read newspapers (2016:209). Examples of these kind of campaigns could be anything from sharing your own story under a hashtag, virtually enact with products, take stand in a political question together with the brand and as a final step share your thoughts, experiences, feelings and the campaign on social media (2016:210). This requires that the campaign is easy to share and that the stakeholders should find it interesting to care of sharing it, therefore transmedial storytelling campaigns are often based on personalization and feelings (2016:212). This is referred to at ’spreadability’ which would include both the technical potential of spreading the campaign, but also the level of interest for the stakeholders and the way the content are presented and used in the campaign (2016:210).

From a strategic communication perspective, there are two main advantages identified for using transmedial storytelling campaigns; first the campaign would reach larger audiences or stakeholders and secondly this can make stakeholders explore and interact with the campaign on platforms they usually would not use (2016:209). When involving the audience you have the possibility to get your message shared in a broad and authentic way, but you would also be out of the control of how and what people will share in relation to the campaign. From a strategic perspective, your campaign needs to be interesting for the stakeholders, otherwise it would not be worth sharing (2016:212). When creating a transmedia storytelling campaign, this would therefore be the main focus in the design and content of the campaign.

The complexity of these kind of campaigns could be linked to a larger perspective on marketing, where ”[t]he current media landscape is a hybrid media ecology within commercial, activist, amateur, non-profit and governmental actors interact with each other in even more complex

ways.” (Guldbrandsen and Just 2016:229). Todays marketing is not just as easy as a company wanting their stakeholders to buy their products or services, the company needs to build a brand that would be able to navigate through this complexity and create a message that could be

understandable, create emotions and consist of content that would be interesting enough to make the stakeholders interact with it.

4.4 Discourse theory

In this thesis I will use the discursive understanding and the theoretical framework of discourse theory according to Laclau and Mouffe. A closer introduction of the analytical tools used in the analysis will be introduced in the methods section.

The discourse analysis is a type of text analysis that aims to understand the construction and use of language, since language itself is seen as the creator of our reality. Language is what we use to describe our reality, and would therefore be the key to understand it. Through a discourse analysis we can be able to understand the interpretations and the thoughts behind the text by looking through, behind and beyond the written text (Bergström and Boréus 2012:354). The discourse analysis has its roots in linguistics but has developed during the years into a theory and method frequently used in social science. This development has opened up the term to also include social practices, communication and images and have also created different branches of the method (2012:356). The discourse theory used in this thesis will draw on Laclau and Mouffe, which will be introduced further on in this section. The discourse analysis is based on a social constructionist approach, which means that our reality is a social construction that we create through social practices expressed through language (Jørgensen and Philip 2002:2). This relates to the idea that a discourse is never static: ”[t]he overall idea of discourse theory is that social phenomena are never finished or total. Meaning can never be ultimately fixed and this opens up the way for constant social struggles about definitions of society and identity, with resulting social effects.” (ibid). A discourse could, therefore, be described as the composition for how we understand things and phenomena, and the analysis of that could make visual how these phenomena are moving and changing. One important thing to consider is the aspect of movement and change within the

discourse is power. The central part of the method is about identifying power and how it operates to create truths and legitimacy in terms of what is possible and not possible to say in the discourse (2012:358).

The linguistic roots are still visible in the discourse analysis, more in some branches than other. The widening of the term could mean analytical framework is extended to a more critical and power-oriented view on discourse, which could both include social practices and communication. Michael Foucault and later Norman Fairclough are seen as the main creators of the development of a wider definition of the term discourse, their understanding of the term is often referred to as Critical discourse analysis or CDA (2012:356-357). Foucault's contribution to the field of discourse analysis is slightly more oriented around linguistics and has its focus on how language creates norms for what is possible to say within the discourse and would, therefore, define where the lines in and between discourses are drawn (2012:358). Laclau and Mouffe's approach to the term is even wider and would not exclude any social practice, nothing could be done or said outside the discourse since this is the way we create our reality, not just understand it (2012:357), which would make it useful when understanding a material consisting of different information, in this case two commercial campaigns.

Laclau and Mouffe’s understanding of discourse analysis would be considered as the third

generation, which has both similarities and differences with the previous understanding of the term. The biggest difference is that Laclau and Mouffe's wider understanding means that nothing could be said or done outside the discourse, while Foucault would understand it as being more narrow and say that use of language could exist outside a particular discourse (ibid). Characteristic for Laclau and Mouffe's discourse analysis is the way to analyze ’the logic of signs’ (2012:364). This has its roots both in the linguist Saussure's semiotic theories about how we create meaning through

language, combined with influences from poststructuralism (2012:365). These perspectives create a discourse analysis interested in understanding the creation of meaning while using different

elements in a specific order.

By using a discourse analysis we can say something about how realities are constructed through language and how normative practices work on what is possible to say in the discourse. I find discourse analysis relevant for analyzing the different texts in my material, since it can say something about the politics and norms behind the language used in the campaigns.

5.0 Methodology

In this section I will give a closer introduction to the empirical material analysed in this thesis and state my approach to the different content in the campaigns. Further on, the the analytical tools in the discourse analysis according to Laclau and Mouffe.


5.1 Empirical material

This thesis will look into two advertising campaigns for female sanitary products; Like a girl (Always 2014) and Blood normal (Libresse 2017). Both campaigns contain promotion films, collaborations with influencers and webpages with different types of content about menstruation. To be more specific about what material I will analyze in this thesis I will now introduce both campaigns content separately. Since the aim of this thesis is to understand the overarching message communicated through the campaigns, I am not interested in doing a detailed analysis of every specific campaign film or every specific collaboration with influencers. I would rather look at the material as different elements that together create a story through various content that help us understand the discourses around activism and feminism in the campaigns. This approach will be strengthened by the theoretical understanding of transmedia storytelling. Since the websites could be seen as hubs for the both campaigns where their different kind of content is presented, these would be my take-off-point when analyzing the material.

The empirical material could be motivated by consisting of two campaigns both advertising female sanitary products. The campaigns are designed for approaching and engaging women and girls, which adds an interesting dimension to the political messages constructed in the campaigns.

Always and Libresse are both big brands for female sanitary products, both owned by multi national companies, which makes them powerful in a marketing context.

Always

Always is a brand for female sanitary products, owned by the Multifunctional manufacturer Protector & Gamble (Always 2018). The campaign #LikeAGirl consists of different campaign films, projects about educating girls about puberty and collaborations with influencers. Since the campaign has been running since 2014 and would still be extended with new material. There are a

lot of different content gathered under the #LikeAGirl-concept, where the main focus is to strengthening girls and women. The story in the main campaign film is about asking young girls and women about how they for example would run or throw ’like a girl’, where the women would run in what could be understood as a stereotypical ’feminine’ way. When asking young girls the same question, they would run as fast as they can, and the message of the campaign would be about reflecting on the term ’like a girl’ and why it is used as an insult. The video has over 65 million views on YouTube (May 2018), and received a lot of media attention when it was released in June 2014. Since the first campaign film, Always has released 12 campaign videos under the concept of #LikeAGirl. They would continuing exploring what it means to do something like a girl in various ways. Examples of this are ’Keep going,’ which focuses on young girls’ confidence in education and future work life, and ’Keep playing,’ which focuses on girls participation in sports. A video called ’Unstoppable’ highlights the gender expectation on young girls.

Always does not have a Swedish website even though the campaign has been running in Sweden. The US website will therefore be the one analyzed in this thesis, since this is the first website suggestion when searching for the campaign. Since the #LikeAGirl-campaign started in 2014, its messages and features are not the main focus for Always website, you could find the material under the About us section, under the headline ”We care about all women and girls” (Always 2018). The material consists of information about the campaign where Always present their different ways of empowering girls and why this is important in relation to puberty and periods. Always would also provide education about menstruation, periods and puberty. Always use of social media and

influencers will be analyzed as strategic communication rather than focusing on the actual content.

To summarize, the empirical material from #LikeAgirl includes the first campaign film where the stakeholders could be understood as mainly young girls, their website addressing young women and girls, their educational program directed to teachers and finally their sports program Keep playing

Libresse

Libresse is a brand for female sanitary products, owned by the Multifunctional hygiene and health manufacturer Essity (Librese 2018). The Libresses campaign Blood Normal consists of a campaign film presented in two different lengths, where the shorter one could be understood as used in for example TV advertisement. The main message of the campaign is that periods are normal, Libresse wants to break the taboo around menstruation by problematize the images represented of

menstruation in culture in general and advertising specifically. The Blood Normal-campaign would gather Libresses content of normalizing menstruation and would include campaign videos, website, collaborations with influencers, education about puberty and texts about menstruation in a cultural context.

Libresse Swedens YouTube channel consists of 24 videos where 13 are a part of their concept ”Blodigt allvar”, informational films about puberty, sex and periods (May 2018). The concept is linked to a forum where young girls are encouraged to discuss these issues and interact with experts called ”Girls 1st”. The Blood Normal campaign is visible throughout the Swedish Libresse site, and the content consists of different articles about menstruation, FAQ, information about their products, facts about menstruation and information about their ongoing project ”Mensutmaningen” (The period challenge). The project aims to increase the knowledge and break the taboo around

menstruation and sports (Libresse 2018). Libresses use of influencers and their presence on social media will be analyzed in relation to how this is used as strategic communication rather than focusing on the actual content. To summarize, the empirical material from Blood Normal includes their campaign film Blood Normal (2017) where the stakeholders could be understood as mainly girls and women, their website addressing young women and girls, their forum girls 1st directed to their younger stakeholders, collaborations with Influencers directed to younger girls and finally their sports program Mensutmaningen directed to teachers, coaches and young girls.

As mentioned in the introduction of this section, the different content and platforms within the campaign as parts of a communication strategy which would be the interest of this thesis. The use of social media in the campaigns will be analyzed with a perspective on how the campaigns intend their stakeholders to interact with them, and not on how this interaction is actually turning out. This could be motivated by my interest in the strategy in the campaigns, rather than if they are

5.2 Discourse analysis as method

I will now introduce the analytical terms used in this thesis analysis according to Laclau and Mouffe to understand different positions within discourses (2012:365). Words, expressions and social practices are referred to as ’signs’, that when are placed in relation to each other creates a meaning. I understand ’sign’ as a way to describe words and expressions within the discourse before they are categorized. In the process of analysis the signs are categorized and placed in chains or figures of meaning through the different terms. The different signs in the discourse are never fixed, the categorization of terms is the way of explaining how fixed or unfixed a sign would be in the

discourse. This would be the core of the discourse analysis, a way to deeply understand these shifts and changes through the categorizations which would make us able to say something about the construction of our changeable reality (2012:364). The understanding of position within a discourse is as the discourse itself changeable over time and depending on context. As described more

extensive in the theory section, this structure is created out of power and norms around language and social practices. To understand the construction of different discourses, the discourse analysis as a method consists of different terms to put in to relation to the material. I will now present the theoretical framework invented by Laclau and Mouffe that will be used in the analysis of this thesis. Since ’signs’ would be the way to describe words concepts or thoughts before they are categorized, the following terms aims to describe the different positions available within the discourse to explain what function they play and to describe the relation between these positions (2012:365).

The term ’element’ aims to explain the signs in the discourse that are loaded with many different kinds of meaning, examples of this can be ’freedom’ or ‘democracy’, signs that hold very different meanings depending on the context. Some of these signs could be extra open for being filled with meaning and could then be understood as a ’floating signifier’, where ’equality’ could be an example of a concept very open for various meanings and understandings depending on context (ibid).

The limitations of the discourse are created out of what is possible to say within the discourse, which in turn is created and maintained through language. To explain this process, the term

’hegemony’ is key and would be described as a discourse that could not be challenged (2012:372). According to Laclau and Mouffe, a discourse could be defined by the way they reduce the

together as a discourse, and that would make them closed for being filled with meaning. This process is called a ’moment’ in the discourse and could be understood in relation to the ’floating signifier’ that is open for various meaning (2012:366). Moments could also be described as ”[knots in the fishing-net, their meaning being fixed through their differences from one another

(‘differential positions’). (2012:364). Another type of sign that plays and important role in the discourse is the ’myth’ that would function as a specific unifying and identity creating sign. The myth is a cluster of floating signifiers that would refer to signs that are specific open to various meanings (ibid).

Since this thesis has a specific focus to understand the available subject positions and nodal points within two campaigns, these terms will be extra important throughout the analysis. The ’nodal point’ would refer to a sign in the discourse that would be valued as extra important and contribute with more meaning than others. These elements could be called ’nodal points’, this is the sign that other signs are circling around, and the nodal point would also fill the circling signs with meaning by being sort of a hub in the discourse (2012:367). Jørgensen and Philip describe the term as follows: ”A nodal point is a privileged sign around which the other signs are ordered; the other signs acquire their meaning from their relationship to the nodal point. In medical discourses, for example, ‘the body’ is a nodal point around which many other meanings are crystallized. Signs such as ‘symptoms’, ‘tissue’ and ‘scalpel’ acquire their meaning by being related to ‘the body’ in

particular ways. A nodal point in political discourses is ‘democracy’ and in national discourses a nodal point is ‘the people’.” (2002:4). The term ’nodal point’ will be central in this thesis since it is part of the research questions. Examples related to the empirical material in this thesis could be ’empowerment’ or ’education’, where confidence and puberty could be examples of signs that acquire their meaning in relation to the nodal points.

The subject position refers to what is possible to say within a discourse in terms of what positions are available for individuals, organizations or other social actors within the discourse. In Laclau and Mouffes understanding of the subject and subject positions includes both a structural and a

theoretical perspective. The structural subject position refers to a position in the material world, for example ’worker’ or ’example’, whereas the theoretical subject position would include, for

example, ’women’, ’activist’, ’parent’. Laclau and Mouffe would refer to the theoretical positions as filters that we would understand the world through, and that these filters can be changeable and

vary in situation and over time (2012:371). The combination of the material and the theoretical subject positions would be part of the wider understanding of the discourse that could be seen as the most significant feature in Laclau and Mouffes theoretical framework. The theoretical subject position’s ability to change can be linked to the overarching discourses where power and norms set the rules for the discourse and for what kind of identities exist in relation to each other. The term ’identity’ in relation to subject positions explains the process that links back to the general idea of the discourse analysis: ”The overall idea of discourse theory is that social phenomena are never finished or total. Meaning can never be ultimately fixed and this opens up the way for constant social struggles about definitions of society and identity, with resulting social effects. The discourse analyst’s task is to plot the course of these struggles to fix meaning at all levels of the

social.” (2002:2). Identity would therefore be changeable (2002:20), yet within the frames of societal norms.

To link this section back to my research questions and the aim of this thesis, I would argue that the nodal points can show us what signs create meaning for other signs and would therefore be able to say something about the constructions of the discourses in the campaigns. While looking into the different subject positions within two commercial campaigns my focus will be on understanding what subject positions that are communicated through the campaigns. What kind of identities and roles are possible to carry according to the campaigns and who would be able to carry them?

5.4 Ethics

Ethical considerations are an important part of any research project, where the Swedish research councils Good research practice (2017) have been a guide for this project. The ethical

considerations in a research project are not limited to how you handle data and information from your informants or other material, it would also include truthful, transparent and that sources to others research should be clearly marked out and easy to follow (2017:10). The ethical perspective should be present throughout every step of the project, and for this specific project I would argue that openness and transparency would be the most important ethical matters to reflect on. My material does not consist of any sensitive information about persons or organizations since the analysis aims to understand the strategic communication in two commercial campaigns. Although, by analyzing the material this research project is responsible for the reproduction of images of various young women and girls in Always and Libresses campaigns, in ways that they as

individuals may not have counted on. I want to state that the research on the campaigns consider the campaigns of the brands and and not the individuals figuring in the campaigns (2017:49). I can of course not say for certain what the intention behind the campaigns has been, I would rather view it from the audience perspective and the conclusions made in this thesis will be based on this

perspective.

5.5 Limitations

Since the interest of this thesis is to understand the content in Always and Libresses campaigns in relation to the discourses of counterculture present in the campaigns, the findings of this study will be limited to be able to say something specific about these two campaigns. Although, the campaigns can tell us something about the tendencies and trends in advertising products to a female audience with political messages. The empirical material consist of two campaigns advertising female sanitary products and the aim is to analyze its message rather than having a deep focus on every element of the content. A detailed analysis of the brands way of interacting with their stakeholders on social media or a visual analysis of campaign films would therefore not be of interest in this thesis, since the overarching message would be in focus. For a further study it would be interesting to analyze the visual features of the campaigns and see how these has changed over time, or compare how advertising for female sanitary products would vary in different contexts.

As mentioned previously, I understand advertising as a mirroring of society, it is an expression that confirms what is already there rather than challenging it (Eisend 2010 in Åkestam et al. 2017). Through analyzing advertising as this mirroring by trying to understand the construction of

discourses in the campaigns, we are able to say something about the societal norms and regulations of talking about politics, feminism and menstruation in a commercial context. The theoretical framework of this thesis can help us understand femvertising and the different elements behind it through Always and Libresses campaigns. The analysis and conclusion would therefore be limited to these perspectives. Although, there are a lot of other theoretical approaches that would be present in the material, such as critical race or postcolonial perspective on the advertising material that could bring to the quality of discussion about women’s bodies, equality, and power. The

methodological limitations of using a critical discourse analysis is the way it would be based on the researchers understanding of the material, very closely tied to the text (Bergström & Boréus

2012:365). Through critical discourse analysis we would not be able to understand the actual thoughts behind the campaigns, or the stakeholders perspectives on the campaigns. Case studies or interviews could be ways of capturing these perspectives, which could be suggestions for further studies.

6.0 Analysis

The analysis is structured around two key themes that I have identified across the two campaigns; Active/healthy femininity and Responsibility. Through the analysis I aim to answer my research questions;

How can we understand ”femvertising” as an evolving media practice through the campaigns of Libresse and Always?

How can we use discourse analysis to understand the subject positions and marketing strategies enacted by these two companies through their transmedia storytelling campaigns?

The analytical themes are a way of structuring the analysis from the nodal points identified in the material. The nodal points works as hubs in the discourse and are therefore a useful starting point for understanding the ongoing discourses and the driving forces behind and around them.

The themes will be used to understand the subject positions in relation to the ’active/healthy femininity’ represented in the campaigns and to understand the way ’responsibility’ is used to position Always and Libresse as brands. The themes can also be seen as a way of understanding the campaigns in two layers; we can say something about how constructions of counterculture in

marketing is used within the campaigns through analyzing how discourses on healthy femininity are present in the content, and be able to say something about what positions would be created by the two brands in a marketing context through the campaigns in relation to responsibility.

The empirical material as a whole and the theoretical framework is visible in different parts of the analysis and linked together beyond the analytical themes. The structure of the analysis will

combine comparing the two campaigns and analyse them separately from each other. The two approaches will be clearly stated throughout the analysis.

6.1 Active/healthy femininity

The expression of active/healthy femininity can stand for both the subject position of healthy women representing an active lifestyle, but it can also be linked to the ideal of femininity as something visible in the ’right’ way.

6.1.1 Health as a nodal point

I identify ’Health’ as a discursive nodal point in the campaigns, a sign that works as a hub in the discourse that other signs circle around, and these signs are filled with meaning through the nodal point. This also means that health need the circling signs to keep its position in the discourse, since ’Health’ is filled with different meaning depending on the context and relation to other signs within the discourse. In my material, health as a nodal point is surrounded by the signs puberty, activity and sports, empowerment, consumption and femininity.

Puberty

Puberty's relation to menstruation and health can be explained by that this is be the time that most begin having periods. Communicating emotions, values and facts around puberty is a way for Always and Libresse to position themselves as important actors in strengthening girls health. From a discursive perspective, puberty can be discursive structured as a ’element’, a sign loaded with many different kinds of meaning (Bergström and Boréus 2012:365). Starting out with the #LikeAGirl-campaign, the overarching message throughout it would be that girls needs to be strengthened when they are in the age of puberty. The strengthening would be done by educating girls about their period and how to gain self esteem:

”At puberty, 50% of girls feel paralyzed by the fear of failure, with 80% of girls feeling that societal pressure to be perfect drives this fear of failure. This leads to girls avoiding trying new things because they’re too afraid to fail. But the truth is, failing is a good thing! It helps us learn, grow and ultimately build

The fear of failure is central in the topic of puberty in Always’s campaign and would be formulated as one of the biggest problems in girls lives. Highlighting the fear of failure and by changing the negative meaning of doing something ’like a girl’ is presented as the solution to make puberty a better time in life for girls. Any explanation of why the fear of failure or why ’like a girl’ would be a negative thing would not be present in the Always campaign. Instead, the focus is be on

strengthening girls and making them feel better about themselves as girls. Doing something like a girl according to Always is about never giving up, one must try, fail and learn in order to become a successful person in society. This can be linked to the neoliberal traditions that influences post feminism, you should give it your all since you would be the one ultimate responsible for your success or failure. In the education material Always changing growing up, directed to girls in 5th-6th grade and their parents, the link between puberty and self esteem would be tightly linked to the own body:


”A healthy body image depends on a healthy attitude - and that’s something you control. As your appearance changes, you may have questions about how you look. Remember that we’re all unique and healthy bodies come in various shapes and sizes. Enjoy being you!” (Always changing and growing up)

Alway’s definition of having a healthy puberty could be put in relation to post feminism, where the body and the constant maintaining of it is be central in performing femininity. The attitude towards

your body would be something you would be responsible for controlling, which would describe the individual as the only actor having power to influence these feelings.

Moving on to the Blood Normal campaign, puberty in relation to health would be closer tied to knowledge and questioning the norms around menstruation in society. These two themes becomes a way for Libresse to discuss menstruation with their stakeholders. The forum Girls 1st, is described as a ”campaign of Libresse for making girls try out a lot of new exiting things! Are you about to kiss someone for the first time or maybe do a circumnavigation of the world… under

water?” (Libresse 2018, my translation). The active/healthy femininity is visible in this text

describing the forum, where circumnavigation of the world would show how a more active position of being a young female would be highly present and clear.

The forum has 24 634 members in June 2018, and they are encouraged to discuss various topics with each other and with experts, with a clear focus on puberty and its physical and psychological features. Information about puberty can be found under the category ”Firstpedia”, where the users can ask questions or discuss puberty and doing things for the first time with each others and with experts. I identify Girls 1st as a episodic transmedia storytelling, where it is part of creating the