CLUE

FROM BERLIN
WITH SOLIDARITY

Users are leaving their U.S.-based period tracking apps over privacy fears. But EU laws guarantee safety. We made Clue’s German roots a signal of trust.

 
This was a pro bono, proactive idea that we cold emailed to Clue without any agency backing or $$$.

Post-Roe v. Wade, the internet blew up with warnings to delete period tracking apps so U.S. authorities couldn’t use the data against users who illegally had an abortion. But Clue is German. GDPR, a strict European Union privacy law, prevents Clue’s user data from being subpoenaed.

This started with OOH that turned into something bigger. First, in states with abortion bans, we launched the bold brand love campaign with a straightforward German tone in American towns with German names: Hamburg, Arkansas. Heidelberg, Texas. Kiel, Wisconsin.

 


Later, we pitched a last-minute, zero-budget spot to the Berlin-based app because we realized that we had the opportunity to spread the word about Clue even more by targeting sympathetic audiences who live in blue states.

The vignettes nodded to TikTok tropes about Americans returning from European vacations to shed light on what Berlin-protected freedoms actually look like in a post-Roe world. We shot it on my iPhone during a spring weekend in Brooklyn.

When we showed this custom :15 to the client, the first thing she said was “I have that shacket from Uniqlo too.”

I also wrote some wild posting lines for Berlin. (Someone’s finally putting that German degree to use!)

I assumed the roles of creative, account, project manager, media, business affairs, producer, director, editor, audio mixer, and probably more for months. For a cause like this, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

PRESS
Femtech World: #FromBerlinWithSolidarity: period tracking app Clue on reproductive rights and data privacy
Reddit: This comment in the r/TwoXChromosomes subreddit

Made across a nine-hour time difference.