The Tampon Book
The Female Company2019
The Tampon Book is a 2019 packaging (tampons sold inside a book) for The Female Company, created by Scholz & Friends, Berlin.
The line
A book against tax discrimination.
Why it works
A tax loophole turned into a manifesto. In 2019 Germany taxed tampons at the standard 19% VAT rate, while books — like caviar, truffles and oil paintings — enjoyed the reduced 7%. The Female Company, an online seller of organic tampons, and Scholz & Friends simply put the tampons inside a book: 45 illustrated pages of stories about menstruation, taboo and feminism, sold at the lower rate and promoting a petition to the Bundestag. According to the award entry, the first 1,000 copies sold out within a day and 6,000 more within a week, and copies went to influencers, journalists and politicians. That autumn the Bundestag voted to cut VAT on menstrual products to 7% from the new year — a change an existing petition had demanded and the book helped push. It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes 2019, Germany's first, and a D&AD White Pencil. It is studied as packaging used as protest: the product didn't carry the argument, it was the argument.
Techniques
- Purpose and cause Campaigns against taxing tampons at the standard rate, packaging the product as a feminist book that promotes a petition to parliament.
- Logos Exposes the absurdity of the tax rules by selling tampons inside a book at the lower rate books enjoy, so the product itself is the argument.
Sources · 4
- Direct winners: The Tampon Book (tax rates, book contents, sales and petition)
- The Tampon Book, Which Protests Taxes on Menstrual Products, Wins PR Grand Prix at Cannes
- Nach Buch-Aktion von Scholz & Friends: Bundestag senkt die Tamponsteuer
- The Tampon Book: A Book Against Tax Discrimination (White Pencil)
Updated
