#NoBagForMe PROJECT winner of the first Unstereotype Advertising Award

Unstereotype Alliance is an initiative convened by UN Women— the United Nations entity for Gender Equality—to eradicate negative gender-based stereotypes in all media and advertising content. Expressing support for their effort, Japan’s largest financial newspaper Nikkei Inc., a founding member of Unstereotype Alliance Japan Chapter, established the Nikkei Unstereotype Award. On this occasion, selected Unicharm’s “#NoBagForMe PROJECT 2019-2020” as their first winner. UN Women congratulated Unicharm for winning the award.

“#NoBagForMe PROJECT 2019-2020” was an ad campaign that questioned people who feel embarrassed and stigmatic about menstruation in Japan. Instead, it encourages all genders to speak openly about it. The award-winning advertisement questioned the concealment of female hygiene products in covered bags (such as black polybags) when purchased in Japan. Instead, it called upon people to challenge the notion that menstruation should be a hidden matter.

Among the 46 works submitted, the judges (including UN Women Japan Liaison Office and the Unstereotype Alliance Japan founding member Japan Advertisers Association (JAA)) selected #NoBagForMe PROJECT 2019-2020 under the 3Ps framework of “Presence, Perspective, and Personality” regarding all 3 to be fully operational.

Kae Ishikawa, Director of UN Women Japan Liaison Office, said in a video message, “The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is severely affecting women and girls around the world, including Japan. That is why it is important for companies to encourage society through their advertising and communications, to challenge negative gender stereotypes like ‘women/men should be like this,’ and instead recommend a positive take on gender.”

Meanwhile, Chikako Nagai of the Unicharm Japan Marketing Department, expressed her appreciation to women, social media influencers, and others who supported their campaign.
“We hope that having a mutual understanding about menstruation and access to different choices on female sanitary products will help unstereotype the negative image revolving around menstruation and allow women to be freed. We look forward to continuing promoting #NoBagForMe campaign.”

The convener UN Women Japan Liaison Office, hopes that more partners in the private sector will join the Alliance and lead the way in creating more advertisements that address unconscious biases against women and girls.