The submissions for this year’s WPPed Cream Awards impressed with their ambition, inventiveness and impact.

I was joined on the jury by Joanna Oosthuizen (Ogilvy), Jim Joseph (BCW) and Candace Kuss (H+K Strategies).

Together we went in search of campaigns that had driven measurable commercial outcomes, improved the societies or communities from which they came, and found their place in popular culture. Critically, the campaigns had to have demonstrated earned attention at their core.

Our Crème de La Crème winner, The Tampon Book, created by Scholz & Friends in Berlin, for The Female Company, is the outstanding example of this type.

Without wanting to break the law, The Female Company, an on-line store, wanted to draw attention to the absurdity that menstrual products are classified as ‘luxury goods’ and taxed at 19%, and, at the same time, wanted to find a way to sell its tampons at a lower tax rate. By creating and selling the Tampon Book, a book with bold illustrations and empowering stories about menstruation, taboo and feminism, that doubled as packaging for its products, the Female Company achieved both goals. It sold its organic tampons with tax levied at 7%, the rate for books. And, a subsequent petition to reduce the tax levied on menstrual products to 7% raised more than 150,000 signatures, the necessary threshold for the German Committee on Legal Affairs to officially debate the abolition of the tampon tax.   

This is a campaign that expertly and creatively challenged a societal injustice. As such, it was not unique. There were other compelling submissions – and I’d encourage you to take time to look at these. But, for this year’s jury, The Tampon Book set the standard for excellence and one to which we all aspire.