We thought the best way to celebrate Spain’s way of enjoying life was having Campofrío produce the first-ever co-created movie in which Spaniards themselves tell us about it in short movie clips. We partnered with the best producer for that format, Ridley Scott, and other great professionals such as Isabel Coixet, Tim Robbins, Ben Kingsley, Juliette Binoche, Denis Hopper, Alberto Iglesias and Javier Mariscal. A movie totally created by real Spaniards, in which great industry professionals would work but just by putting the pieces together and making it emotional and entertaining. Campofrío’s positioning would naturally give meaning to everything in the movie by opening and closing it with its claim: “Let nothing and no-one stand in our way of enjoying life”.

The approach in this category hasn’t changed for decades. It reinforces the fear of smelling bad, and portrays perfectly normal discharges as body leakages that need fixing. In other words, it broadcasts a sense of shame to women.

We conducted quantitative research (8,000+ women) across multiple countries and fastidiously reviewed academic studies and poignant articles. The same themes kept cropping up again and again, which led us to our insight:

There’s an unhealthy quest for the perfect vagina: 44% of women are embarrassed by their vulvas and 57% feel pressure for it to look a certain way (Essity quantitative research) – as a result, labiaplasty (the procedure to alter the labia) was the fastest-growing cosmetic surgery in the world, up 45% in 2016 vs. 2015 (ISAPS). This toxic quest is fuelled by societal shame and censorship around women’s genitals.

To show women how much we care, we overturned a long history of shame and objectification to respectfully shatter the myth of the perfect vulva!

Mirroring classic, Hollywood glamour

We would draw on Max Factor’s historic reputation: classic glamour, make-up artistry and Hollywood. And there was only one place this campaign could shine: the silver screen.

Knowing our audience go to the cinema approximately twice a year, we partnered Max Factor with Murder on the Orient Express and The Greatest Showman. Both films were pegged to be the biggest blockbusters for 2017, and had leading ladies who resonated with our audience.

We created bespoke content for the cinema in the form of make-up tutorials that recreated looks donned by the leading ladies in each film.

Aimed at our female audience in their ‘rediscovery stage’, looking to become their best selves, we showed how easy it could be to recreate ‘film star’ looks at home with a product range that could embrace and empower them.