CASE 54 / Bodyform / Libresse / Essity / 2020
#WombStories
Give complicated experiences a visual language instead of forcing them into one customer story.
AI-assisted research and analysis for the SNS Creative Fieldbook
Sources reviewed 2026-11-05
Campaign credits belong to the original creators. They did not write or endorse this analysis.
Credits: AMV BBDO; directed by Nisha Ganatra and produced by Chelsea Pictures, with multiple animation collaborators.
Recognition: 2021 D&AD Black Pencil for Art Direction; 2020 Cresta Grand Prix in the cited branded-entertainment entry.
Launch / edition: 2020. Award years: 2020, 2021.
The problem. The idea. The experience.
The campaign challenged a simplified life narrative around periods, fertility and menopause.
How the idea came to life
Released in July 2020, the film combined live action and animation to portray differing experiences, including not wanting children, fertility treatment, miscarriage, endometriosis and menopause.
How it reached people
The film and campaign invitation encouraged people to share their own stories. D&AD describes research that asked participants to express experiences through metaphors.
Supporting sources: Primary award organization → Primary award organization → Primary production-company portfolio →
Read the data in context.
The numbers below describe different kinds of outcomes. Their date, scope and reporting source are part of the result.
D&AD records nine Pencils in 2021, including a Black Pencil for Art Direction. The sources reviewed do not provide a controlled measure of wellbeing, stigma reduction or incremental sales.
The creative mechanism.
Different animation styles express internal experiences that live action alone cannot show
Multiplicity was the organizing idea
A single idealized customer journey can exclude people whose lives differ. Showing multiple trajectories lets the brand acknowledge complexity without pretending every viewer has the same need or aspiration.
Metaphor made private feeling visible
A literal scene can show what happens, while an imagined world can show how it feels. That is a useful creative distinction when a service or product touches experiences that are difficult to articulate.
Research informed the form, not just the brief
Asking people for metaphorical descriptions can generate creative material beyond demographic insights. The responsibility is to preserve meaning and consent rather than reduce a difficult experience to a striking visual device.
The intended behavior loop
- 01Recognize an experience or emotion
- 02Understand that different stories coexist
- 03Discuss the film or share a story voluntarily
- 04Feel greater relevance to the brand
- 05Return to the brand’s resources or products
Growth job: Recognition of lived experience → emotional affinity → conversation and brand distinction. This is an interpretation of the mechanism, not an audited attribution model.
A direction to take into the room.
Original editorial interpretation and proposed adaptation. This is a proposed adaptation, not historical campaign execution or a forecast.
The transferable principle
Replace a universal customer narrative with a small set of genuinely different experiences, using distinct creative forms only where they clarify meaning.
Keep these boundaries
Do not pressure people to disclose intimate histories for brand engagement. Avoid portraying a medical condition through a metaphor that distorts its reality or excludes affected people from review.
Turn the lesson into a test.
Illustrative adaptation, not a historical campaign fact
A small-team experiment
For a low-sensitivity service, ask customers to describe a frustrating process as a place, character or weather pattern, then test an explanatory visual.
Build the test
- Recruit a varied, consenting group.
- Collect metaphors without assuming one is representative of everyone.
- Translate two contrasting experiences into simple sketches.
- Ask participants whether the sketches preserve their meaning.
Measure the right thing
Measure recognition, clarity and usefulness across different groups; track disagreement rather than averaging it away.
Know when to stop
Stop if the creative becomes more memorable than the truth it is meant to express or participants feel exposed.
How this reading fits your brief
Start with the useful part.
Best for: Recognition of lived experience → emotional affinity → conversation and brand distinction
What to adapt: Give complicated experiences a visual language instead of forcing them into one customer story.
Prerequisites: Consent-led research; Sensitive-topic review; Animation collaborators; Moderation.
Smaller-team route: For a low-sensitivity service, ask customers to describe a frustrating process as a place, character or weather pattern, then test an explanatory visual.
Budget: Not established by the cited public sources. No cost-fit claim is made.
Trade-offs and evidence: Read the limits below before choosing a test. There is no guaranteed reach, sales lift or ROAS.
Questions for your next brief
- Which customer story has the category treated as universal?
- What can animation show that a literal demonstration cannot?
- How will we preserve differences without creating stereotypes?
Sources & further reading.
Brand and award-entry results are attributed claims, not independent causal audits. Source links open the original third-party pages.
- D&AD: How AMV BBDO changed the narrative with #wombstories →Primary award organization · Supports: Research method, metaphor, lived-experience craft and 2021 awards.
- Cresta Awards: #wombstories →Primary award organization · Supports: July 2020 release, narrative scope, agency and award.
- Chelsea Pictures: Libresse #wombstories →Primary production-company portfolio · Supports: Director and production-company credits.
Independent educational analysis of external campaigns. These are not SNS client projects, endorsements or claims of involvement. Campaign facts and reported outcomes are attributed to their sources. Explanations, adaptations and test plans are original analysis and hypotheses, not proven causal findings.