Ads on Pads expands to Australia with Swisse as first advertiser

Kiwi social enterprise Ads on Pads has secured wellness brand Swisse as its first Australian advertiser.

Ads on Pads, which was set up in 2024, funds free period products through advertising on product packaging and dispensers. It has been operating in venues across Aotearoa like universities, shopping centres and events like music festival Rhythm and Vines.

Earlier this year, Ads on Pads made the move across the Tasman, building a presence at the University of Melbourne. The partnership with Swisse followed soon after, thanks to some help from LinkedIn.

Speedy turnaround

At the end of July, Swisse launched its ‘We are hysterical’ campaign, designed to encourage advocacy and awareness for women’s health issues, including endometriosis, PMS and menopause.

After seeing the campaign on LinkedIn, copywriter Sophie Hickey tagged Gorasia, who then connected with Swisse’s marketing manager and agency PMG Media. It only took a month for them to turn the partnership around, says Gorasia. Swisse’s advertising will run until the end of January.

“[The campaign] came with amazing creative, but behind it was a series of pledges that the brand had made about how they actively wanted to support women’s health research – that’s what stuck out to me,” says Gorasia.

“I think it’s the most values aligned campaign we’ve had to date, because it’s so focused on women’s health and the traditional areas of women’s health that are missed, which is entirely what we exist to address.”

Swisse Wellness marketing director ANZ Stephanie Taylor says in a press release: “Partnering with Ads on Pads is a natural extension of our commitment to women’s health. For Swisse it is about converting our commitment into practical support and helping ensure women are supported with the knowledge and access to what they need, when they need it most.”

The only caveat to the partnership is that Swisse wanted to go live as soon as possible. Ads on Pads had plans to launch in 10 Pilates studios across Melbourne in November which had to be brought forward. It was “a dream scenario but it was also quite scary,” Gorasia says.

Bringing their November launch forward was made possible thanks to the “really lovely” team Ads on Pads works with, she adds. This includes their printers who stayed late and opened early, as well as the employees at the Attainable Trust who prioritised labelling their stock so everything could get to Melbourne on time.

“I flew over a couple of times to make sure things were good. It was a short turnaround but I think it was based on the foundations we’ve managed to create in New Zealand, we’re at a point where we can jump on opportunities when they come our way,” says Gorasia.

Seven different health facts

Normally, Ads on Pads features one creative per campaign across its period products. But for ‘We are hysterical’, it will feature seven different artworks, each one based on a different fact. For instance: that it takes seven to 10 years on average to receive an endometriosis diagnosis, there are 48 distinct symptoms of menopause, or that women were routinely excluded from clinical trials until 1993.

“Often people are regularly going to these Pilates studios, it helps creates a little collection for them and help expand their knowledge in a really digestible format,” says Gorasia.

She adds that Ads on Pads will create a content series about each of the seven facts to reduce stigma and help people learn more about each one. This campaign will also see 10% of profits donated to Share the Dignity, a charity tackling period poverty in Australia.

“A lot of our research around period equity comes from a survey that they do annually. So being able to give back to that cause and make sure we continue to do that no matter where we grow is really important,” says Gorasia.

One of the reasons why Gorasia had her sights set on expanding into Australia so early in Ads on Pads’ journey was because for many brands, that’s where funding decisions are made – even for the Aotearoa market.

“It’s really cool, because it helps us unlock international brands for us to work with and creates a bit of a halo effect back home.”

Authentic advertisers

What Gorasia loves about the advertisers she works with is that they all approach the partnerships from an authentic space. “None of them want to slap a logo on our pads and call it a day.”

Recent advertiser adidas was in the pipeline for 10 months before the work came to fruition. The result was a campaign focused on keeping girls in sport.

“We know periods are the number one reason that girls stop playing sport, and most girls won’t play consistently after 15 – they’ll drop out and never play again,” says Gorasia. “We’ve been able to pop up at rugby games with free period products where we know lots of young girls in particular attend to help share that messaging. Hopefully, there will be more to come on that as well.

“All these brands have the intention of walking the walk, which helps us showcase ourselves as a really good storytelling platform.”

Ads on Pads’ case studies from the Aotearoa market deliver enough proof points that this method of advertising delivers significant value back to the brand, she adds.

The University of Melbourne is looking to further expand Ads on Pads across its campus locations. Meanwhile, Gorasia is looking to coworking spaces next as a way to support young professionals against moments of inequity.

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