Canesten wanted to debunk myths surrounding vaginas and help people set themselves free from shame to empower young people with knowledge about vaginal health and give them greater confidence to look after their intimate health.
So, we developed a revolutionary education-at scale initiative,
The Truth, Undressed.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY CANESTEN / BROUGHT TO YOU BY CANESTEN / BROUGHT TO YOU BY CANESTEN / BROUGHT TO YOU BY CANESTEN / BROUGHT TO YOU BY CANESTEN / BROUGHT TO
The Challenge
The UK is seen as a progressive nation for sexual health education, but only 6% of UK women (aged 16-25) learn about intimate health conditions through education. Vaginal health education remains taboo at school and at home is one of the most restricted and overly sexualised topic on the internet.
Our objective: to educate all 11-24 year-olds in the UK on vaginal health to put an end to shame, taboos and misinformation.
of UK women find out about vaginal infections when they first experience them
60%
60%
81%
81%
of young women (18-24) agreed that there should be greater education about vulvas in schools
of UK women find out about intimate health conditions through school and university education
6%
6%
The world’s fastest-growing
The world’s fastest-growing
plastic surgery is labiasplasty procedure (procedure to alter the appearance of the labia of the vulva).
The Insight
This lack of education leads to feelings of shame.
Shame stands in the way of good vaginal health and holds people back from talking about vaginas and vaginal health to their doctors.
As a result, they turn to the internet when they have a problem, a place where harmful myths and misconceptions flourish.
Source:
1,600 women, WIH Path to Purchase study, 2019
‘Different Is Normal’ research by Canesten and sexual health charity Brook, Survey of 1,000 UK women (aged 18-24)
The Solution
The Creative Idea
The Truth, Undressed
An education platform which teaches the reality of how our bodies look and behave, with unprecedented access to the naked truth. Removing the metaphors, euphemisms, oversimplification, sexualisation and clothing.
The unique programme, taking place at school and online, consists of an educational microsite and social media awareness videos, along with lesson plans developed in collaboration with national body the PSHE Association.
THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED.
THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED. THE TRUTH UNDRESSED.
The Execution
The Truth, Undressed, Microsite
An editorial-style site full of educational, medically-verified articles: everything you need to know that’s historically missed out by schools and parents, including for the first time in education, photography of real and diverse vulvas and vaginal discharge.
The platform is helping young people become more informed and better armed to spot and address concerns about their own intimate health.
Our intention was to move imagery away from stereotyped and sexualised depictions into an informative, educational space to prove that all vulvas look different and there is no such thing as a ‘normal’ vulva.
Visit the microsite
Lessons Plans and Truthful Resources for Schools
To achieve long-term societal impact, we integrated
The Truth, Undressed into the UK mandatory school syllabus.
We partnered with the PSHE Association (the UK national body for personal, social, health and economic education) to create a set of lesson plans for Key Stages 3-5.
This partnership empowers and enables teachers to educate on the same subject matters as our microsite, in real classrooms.
All content is specifically adapted to each age group and works on a tiered system, with options ranging from including photographs to illustrations to text only.
Visit the PSHE site
Social Ads
Working in collaboration with the different social platforms, we had to adapt our content to respect the regulations and created a series of impactful educational films across TikTok and Instagram, to reach our youth audience and redirect them to truthful information on the microsite.
The Results
42,000
42,000
website visits in one month
2.5
2.5
Mins
mins
average website dwell time (40% more than Canesten’s brand website)
63
63
pieces of targeted coverage, with a media coverage audience of 163 million.
150,000
150,000
students reached through lesson plans as part of the National Curriculum in schools across the UK.
1,432
1,432
teaching material downloads
3.4
3.4
people reached on social media