In today’s digital landscape, feminine wellness brands are facing increasing barriers to promoting their products.
For example, many brands’ ads have been regulated on Meta’s platforms for using the term vagina, promoting menopause-related products and discussing conditions such as endometriosis, even though the company’s stated policy only restricts content relating to sexual pleasure. Google ads has suspended brand accounts for promoting similar content. On TikTok, period care and sexual wellness brands also face shadow banning, in which content is heavily hidden from viewers, due to images of period products or captions referring to female anatomy.
In 2021, the Center for Intimacy Justice conducted a study with 60 women’s health-focused brands to quantify these censorship issues. All 60 businesses reported Meta platforms had rejected ads and 50 percent reported their accounts had been suspended.
This kind of censorship is pervasive and affects an array of brands. According to the Center for Intimacy Justice’s report, brands that faced censorship fell under the categories of menopause, pelvic pain, pregnancy, postpartum care, menstrual health, fertility and sexual wellness and education. The brands, products and services were restricted under the guise that they are considered “adult products or services,” however, erectile dysfunction product advertisements are widely circulated on Meta sites according to the study. Regulations on digital advertisements and social media posts are exceedingly ambiguous.
Last month, Meta updated its policy in an effort to clarify what is and isn’t allowed. Specifically, sex education, products developed for women experiencing menopause and products to relieve pain during sex are now allowed. However, in practice many of the brands and products that address these subjects are still being flagged or restricted.
Maude, a sexual wellness brand that launched at Sephora earlier this year, has faced censorship since its 2018 founding. The brand is unable to advertise most of its products due to rules around items that promote pleasure. However, Maude founder Éva Goicochea said the brand rarely uses wording specifically referring to pleasure. The lack of clarity in how to promote products has negatively impacted her ability to grow Maude’s business. “Because it’s not clear, it’s been difficult for us to grow in channels where you would typically grow,” Goicochea said. “It’s always like a minefield to navigate, because even if we’re not using that language, we still get flagged.” Many of Maude’s products are developed for the female anatomy, so these restrictions lead to a gender-based disparity when it comes to access and education within the sexual wellness category.
Similarly, CBD-infused sexual wellness brand Foria has been flagged for its campaign imagery, which often uses flowers to represent the vagina. These images are marked as too explicit. “We are not trying to be explicit in our content or our visuals. We’re just trying to be honest and direct,” said Foria’s chief content officer Kiana Reeves. “What’s challenging is when planning a campaign…we have to always accommodate for Meta and the paid social channels in a neutered kind of way.” The brand has struggled to tell its story and promote its products because of this censorship. Brand “growth is stunted for sure because visibility, ultimately, is what it comes down to,” said Reeves.
Condom brand Jems has also hit marketing roadblocks. The brand was cofounded by designer-duo Whitney Geller and Yasemin Emory to bring a more aesthetically driven product to the condom aisle. The brand’s entire goal is to provide safe sex for everyone. However, they have faced restrictions, although their products, imagery and advertisements follow guidelines.
“Technically condoms are allowed under Meta’s policies to be promoted, as long as it doesn’t advertise pleasure, but it just hasn’t been our experience,” said Geller. Jems has had issues boosting ads and has found people are unable to tag the brand across Meta platforms. Emory noted that when they appeal ad and post rejections, they find their original content complied with all regulations. “There’s sort of this very gray, hazy vagueness to what is allowed and what isn’t allowed,” Geller said.
Most recently, Jems launched its “Use a Condom” campaign meant to promote safe sex. The brand created T-shirts with the simple slogan. However, they’re unable to boost ads featuring models wearing the shirts, even though these posts comply with guidelines of not mentioning pleasure. Jems is often forced to censor the words condom and sex, as well. In the brand’s Instagram bio, condoms is replaced with c*ndoms, and on many posts a glove emoji is used to replace the word altogether.
For Jems, retail censorship has also been an issue. Retailers will only allow Jems to be featured on the condom aisle, rather than in the grab-and-go section or the travel aisle. Furthermore, retailers have rejected Jems, as they are deemed inappropriate. “It’s really on the retailers to provide more options to people, and so it’s almost a moral obligation or responsibility to be a part of this movement where you are offering choices when choices are being stripped away,” said Emory.
In the midst of Roe v. Wade being overturned, access to education and products geared toward women’s health are more important than ever, say analysts. Policymakers have gotten involved in an effort to address the issue. United States senator and chair of the senate health, education, labor and pensions committee Patty Murray recently wrote a letter to Meta demanding them to change their policies around this issue.
In her letter she wrote, “Social media is often a critical tool for learning and sharing information, including health information. By preventing access to women’s health content, I am concerned Meta is actively preventing many of its users, especially women, from getting access to information that could support their health and well-being.”
However, this issue isn’t just impacting products that are geared toward sexual wellness and safe sex. Pause Well-Aging, a skin care brand developed for women in the menopause stage of life, has faced similar issues in marketing and selling its products.
Pause Well-Aging founder and chief executive officer Rochelle Weitzner said she initially faced issues from the media upon the brand launch in 2019. At the start, outlets weren’t interested in covering the menopause category. While this mindset has shifted, the brand has faced similar issues when it comes to online retailers and digital advertising. In most cases, whether it be Google advertisements or social media posts, the brand is censored for using the word menopause. Weitzner said the mere mention of the word causes posts and products to be flagged as medically related, though menopause is a life stage not a medical condition. This phrasing has led to several of its product listings being temporarily removed from Amazon.
Most recently, Pause Well-Aging was suspended from advertising on Google for two weeks, though executives were unable to confirm the reasoning for it. “Typically, what we find is that if we push back four or five times we might be able to get our ad through. It all goes back to the lack of education and the lack of understanding,” Weitzner said.
Similarly, The Honey Pot Company, founded by Bea Dixon, has faced issues in promoting its women’s health products, many of which are period-focused. The Honey Pot Company’s exposure on TikTok dropped by 70 percent between May and September 2022 due to imagery used on the channel and site. “We are not allowed to show anything that would be deemed as inappropriate, including a tampon string, buttocks and underwear or menstrual blood, not only in the content, but on our website itself,” said The Honey Pot Company’s director of social media and community Desiree Natali. “Since our TikTok does link out to our website, the channel as a whole is now being suppressed, because we do decide as a brand to show periods authentically.”
By having the brand’s website linked in their bio, content will continue to be shadow banned. The brand’s entire TikTok channel was also temporarily suspended for using the word vagina.
Encouragingly, Dixon said she hasn’t faced any sort of censorship when it comes to working with the brand’s retailers, which include Walmart and Target. In fact, they have been supportive of the messaging. “It’s quite beautiful how much our retailers support us because we say vagina, vagina, vagina. We do everything that you can imagine,” she said. “It’s overwhelmingly supportive.”
Similarly, Maude hasn’t experienced issues with retailers. “Retailers are much more open because they know that these products move,” Goicochea said.
Source: WWD