It’s totally unsurprising that the new HelloFlo video that debuted this week, “First Moon Party,” has made just as big a splash as “Camp Gyno” did last year. In light of its — and the tampon delivery company's — success, professional women’s network TheLi.st sat down with HelloFlo's founder and CEO, Naama Bloom, to chat about everything from where the idea for the ad came from to what Bloom did to build up her company over time. The whole interview is definitely worth a read, so I highly suggest that you head on over to TheLi.st’s page on Medium for the full story; in the meantime, here are a few of the highlights:
On “First Moon Parties”:
Apparently “First Moon Parties” actually are a thing. Said Bloom, “About 10 months ago I got an email from a single dad who threw a small dinner for his daughter when she got her period. He had all the women in her life—grandmother, aunts, close friends—take her out and celebrate her.” Bloom thought the story was sweet and posted it on the HelloFlo Facebook page; others, in response, mentioned that they’d had similar parties. That sparked the idea for the video, so when she finally got in the room with co-writers and directors Jamie T. McLelland and Pete Marquis, they “immediately started brainstorming ways to make it funny and relatable.” Who knew?
On Successful Advertising:
“We had multiple rounds with the script and spent a lot of time ‘solving the problems,’” Bloom said. “For instance, it was important to talk about the Period Starter Kit but more important was the insight that parents often wait too long to talk to their daughters — if you wait until your child is 11 or 12, she often doesn’t want to talk to you anymore. We wanted to show that in a relatable and funny way while also suggesting our Starter Kit as the tool that will help you with the talk.” This, to me, is one of the key reasons both Hello Flo campaigns have worked so well. Of course they’re about selling a product — they’re advertisements — but they’ve also made sure that they’re tapping into something bigger than themselves. That’s where change at large comes from, and in this case, it’s a big step in ripping down the idiotic taboos surrounding menstruation.
On Building a Business:
In response to a question suggesting the precocious girls who star in the videos might be representations of Bloom herself, she had this to say:
“As for stubborn, willful and enterprising — well, all I can say is that basically every investor I spoke to turned me down and didn’t think the way we market and sell products to women needed to change. They didn’t see a business in what I was doing. And while all those rejections were disheartening, I didn’t give up. The investors said no so I went knocking on even bigger doors. And I think that one of the reasons that P&G [who sponsor the Period Starter Kit] believed in my business because I was stubborn, willful and enterprising. I wouldn’t let them say no to me. So they had no choice but to say yes.”
You know that whole “women are bossy” thing? This is proof that “bossiness” isn’t something you have to worry about. “Bossiness” is perseverance, and it is absolutely what you need to get things done. And hats off to P&G for recognizing it, too — again, it’s a sign that change is imminent (Take that, Entrepreneur Barbie). Hoorah!
Medium has the complete interview, so check it out. Also, does anyone else really want to hire a Vagician for their next shindig? No one seems to know exactly what it is, but man. Talk about party-tainment!
Image: HelloFlo/YouTube
