• by Les Luchter , December 15, 2023

Masturbation as medicine for menopausal and post-menopausal women?

That’s the message UK-based sexual device marketer MysteryVibe is shouting in its first U.S. campaign, which a spokesperson notes is also “the first public campaign promoting orgasms for post-menopausal women.”

The message is being spread via 24 out-of-home (OOH) boards in 12 midtown and downtown Manhattan locations starting Dec. 15. Spanning the Christmas shopping season, the campaign will run two weeks.

“The campaign’s goal is to start a conversation about a taboo subject,” Tash Loeb Mills, planning director for MysteryVibe’s U.S. agency Havas Lynx Group, tells Marketing Daily. “Whether seen by tourists or shoppers, we hope to generate more conversation about the sexual wellbeing of women after menopause.

“Masturbation should be used as a ‘medicine’ for women after menopause,” Mills explains, and the campaign is “designed to remove the social stigma around sexual wellbeing for both peri and post-menopausal women, and ultimately support their long-term health as they age."

The MysteryVibe ads, placed at bus stops and newsstands, declare “A menopause prescription you’ll be happy to take. Over and over again” and tout “Award-winning, doctor-designed intimacy devices.”

Manhattan was chosen for the campaign “partly because of Manhattan’s high concentration of people” and because most of MysteryVibe’s U.S. team are based in New York, Dr. Soum Rakshit, founder and chief executive officer of MysteryVibe, tells Marketing Daily. Havas Lynx has “just opened a New York office,” adds Mills, so “team members are on the ground as well to make the campaign happen.”

The U.S. launch comes two weeks after MysteryVibes launched a product-specific campaign in the U.K. -- with ads for its flagship Crescendo 2 vibrator touting “Better intimacy. Every Time” on bus stops in 75 locations across central London. The company boasts this is the first vibrator ad approved by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority and Transport for London.

JCDeceux, MysteryVibe’s OOH company in both the U.K. and the U.S., also obtained necessary U.S. approvals, notes Dr. Rakshit.

What’s next?

“Our plan is to take this campaign further in different locations across the U.S.” answers Mills. “The ultimate goal is to extend the message as far as possible, and address the challenges faced by women everywhere.”

In addition to the OOH, MysteryVibe today is also launching an educational social media video featuring Joyce Harper, professor of reproductive science at the Institute for Women’s Health, University College, London. “Orgasms are really good for our health,” Professor Harper said in a statement, “so we need to get education embedded for women to understand they should masturbate and talk about it.”

Reiterating that message, Mills says the intention the Harper video and other educational content is to drive earned media, “given the importance of the message, and the fact that the conversation about pleasure post-menopause is one that hasn’t been happening before now.”