Kotex chats about 'stuff girls don't say'

Sanitary-pad-friendly fashion and behaviourial tendencies during menstruation are discussed and laughed about in a Kotex-sponsored online video series: “Stuff Girls Don’t Say” running until the end of June.

Developed by Mindshare and Thoughtful China, An Xiaoqi (pictured)—a fictional character who uses Sina Weibo to talk about the daily life of a young woman in modern Shanghai—is shown handling hilarious real-life situations arising from menstruation that creates social challenges for girls her age. An's Weibo subscriber base has nearly 150,000 fans to date.

According to the agency, the fictional character allows for more control over the key messages the client wants to communicate. "With such a character we can also extend the concept further by  creating actual narratives that users can engage with," Chungaiz Khan Mumtaz, head of invention at Mindshare China, said.

In addition, the same character that plays Xiaoqi also takes the identity of a subject expert by the name of 'Da Qi Ma', a wordplay of the Chinese slang term for menstruation. Through a five-part online video talk show format, she educates her fans about what to wear and what to say to guys during that time of month.

The social-media-driven campaign was designed to raise awareness about the Kotex sanitary pad category and to eliminate the stigma surrounding the subject of menstruation. Kimberly-Clark is monitoring the campaign to determine how character-driven content fits into a broad-based media effort.