In July 2024, Knix, the intimates brand best known for period underwear, tapped former Olympic soccer player Megan Rapinoe to talk about female athletes and periods. It is based on insights around the way menstrual cycles impact women and girls in sports.
Knix’s insights were sourced in partnership with CAN Fund #150Women, a community-driven campaign by Canadian Athletes Now, which supports Canadian female athletes. “Every good campaign that I’ve ever seen is always based on an amazing insight,” said Nicole Tapscott, chief commercial officer at Knix. Among the leveraged insights: one in two teens will skip sports or drop out altogether because of their period, 75% of athletes have a fear of leaking while competing, and over 64% of athletes have felt uncomfortable talking about their periods with their coaches.
In a PSA video, Rapinoe said, “Enough with the shame. It’s time to keep every teen in sports by being loud about your period. Because the more we talk about periods in sports, the more we normalize periods in sports, and the more teens stay in sports,” directing viewers to the website sportyourperiod.com, a subpage of Knix’s website.
To help decrease stigma around female athletes simply acknowledging the reality of menstruation, Knix offered $2,000 to eligible athletes competing at the national or international level for speaking about their periods and the sport they play. “[Athletes] could go on their own TikTok or Instagram and say, ‘I was on my period today, and I had a great game.’ Or, ‘I felt like crap,’ or whatever way the wind blew. It was just about breaking down the barrier and introducing this topic of conversation into the zeitgeist,” Tapscott said of Knix’s call to action.
Knix, which won this year’s Glossy Pop award for Best Brand Sport Partnership, saw 300 million impressions in earned media coverage and a 238% increase in searches for Knix, with both metrics supporting its goals for the campaign. This kind of campaign, Tapscott acknowledged, is “not a sales-generating moment” for the brand, despite its large offering of leakproof underwear, swimwear and activewear.
“They’re really opportunities for us to take an insight that impacts a lot of people, particularly people in our own community, and tell a story that engages them and makes a meaningful difference. … On an anecdotal basis, I don’t think we’ve ever received so many positive acknowledgements,” Tapscott said of the response to the campaign.
