A heads up: this page contains photography of vulvas.

The education programme which finally lets you hear, read and see the truth about vaginas and vulvas.

The challenge

Canesten wanted to establish their new brand purpose - to help people set themselves free from shame and discomfort - with the next generation of first-time sufferers of vaginal infections.

When open education isn’t available, harmful myths and misconceptions fills the gaps in our knowledge. This fuels the age-old stigma around the topic of vaginas, impacting our health and happiness. And access to education in the UK was still abysmally low - 60% of women in the UK only found out about vaginal infections when they first experienced one. Mainly because only 6% ever find out about health conditions through school or university. 

The insight

If we can’t see the truth, harmful myths and misconceptions fills the gaps in our knowledge. And from school to social media, vulvas and vaginas are something repeatedly censored, making decent education virtually impossible to find.

The solution

We partnered Canesten’s doctors with the PSHE Association, and created a host of lessons designed to reveal the truth in a new way: entertaining, shame-free and accessible to everyone. The Truth, Undressed. They spread the truth in a myriad of ways, from quotes collected from real people with vaginas, to medical expertise, to actual photos of vulvas and discharge.

Living on a public microsite - thetruthundressed.co.uk - to real lesson plans in actual schools, part of the UK National Curriculum. Young people can finally learn about the topics that have been forever censored.

We created promoted posts to get our site out there. Naturally, we couldn’t show any of our content on social media. So we used tiresome euphemisms to our advantage, and spoke to the audience’s frustrations trying to get answers about their bodies.