Procter & Gamble, noting the shortage of tampons nationwide, blames comedian Amy Schumer’s ad for their product’s rise in demand.
P&G makes Tampax, the best-selling tampon brand in America. Schumer’s 2020 ad campaign featured her as a tampon supplier helping women get tampons.
“Retail sales growth has exploded” since the ad campaign, spokeswoman Cheri McMaster told TIME.
“P&G said in its most recent earnings call that it was still having trouble sourcing raw materials for feminine care products, getting them to the places that need them, and getting products on trucks to retailers,” TIME added.
“To put it bluntly, tampons are next to impossible to find,” radio host Michelle Wolfe stated. “I would say it’s been like this for a solid six months.”
“Amazon sellers were taking advantage of the shortage; in January, one box of 18 Tampax listed for $114, about six dollars more—per tampon—than women usually pay,” TIME stated.
Thyme Sullivan, the CEO and co-founder of The Organic Project, which makes tampons in Europe, said shipping tampons to the U.S. has become 300% more expensive since last year.
“Amazon is out of stock of nearly every brand and variety, especially the most popular brands,” Business Insider reported in March regarding the tampon shortage. “Depending on the product, Amazon is promising to deliver as soon as anywhere from 4 to 5 days from now to several weeks. Other items make no promises on the delivery date at all, but just say ‘currently unavailable.’”
“We have thousands of PG employees working around-the-clock to continue serving consumers, as many of our products play an important role in maintaining healthy habits and a healthy home environment, both critically important at this time,” a spokesperson for P & G said in March. “We are maximizing production and distribution capacity where possible to ensure we can get products to as many consumers as quickly as possible. We are taking the right steps to safeguard our workplaces through appropriate social distancing and work-from-home protocols.”
Melissa Suk, vice president of North America Tampax and Always for P&G, saw Schumer’s 2019 Netflix special and thought an ad campaign featuring Schumer would work, Ad Age reported.
“We really wanted to normalize things by making period and tampon conversations as normal as periods,” Suk said. “There’s a lot of taboo really preventing people from asking the right questions, and a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to education about both your body and your periods and how you use tampons. We knew the only way we were going to be successful at that was to use humor. Frankly, in our category, a lot of celebrities may not be interested in talking about tampons or periods.”
Schumer’s ad campaign, which educated women about the use of tampons and the various sizes available to them, included titles such as “What’s Your Combo? Time To Tampax with Amy Schumer,” How to Insert a Tampon: Time To Tampax with Amy Schumer,” and “Let’s Talk About It: Time To Tampax with Amy Schumer.”
The campaign was created by Publicis Groupe, MSL, and Schumer with the comedian’s comedy writing team and was directed by Kathy Fusco of Hungryman.