CLUE

FROM BERLIN
WITH SOLIDARITY

German period tracking app publicizes ongoing commitment to EU data privacy law after U.S. abortion ban by leaning into all things German in America 

 
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.

So, in our “spare time,” we cold emailed the Berlin-based app and pitched them a pro bono idea (without any agency backing) for the one-year anniversary of the overturning. In states with abortion bans, we launched a 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 spot to Clue 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 internet 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.

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.