The campaign, which featured bold billboards in the US and humorous posters in Berlin, was, in co-CEO Audrey Tsang’s words, directed at sparking a conversation about the importance of privacy rights for equal healthcare.
We sat down with Clue chief product officer, Rhiannon White, to find out more about it.
Femtech World: From Berlin With Solidarity has definitely caught our attention on social media. How did it come about?
Rhiannon White: We’ve always been proud about our origins and about being from Berlin. So, From Berlin With Solidarity came very naturally.
It’s been a rough year for reproductive rights and through our campaign, we wanted to emphasise our solidarity with people with cycles and the importance of taking data privacy and security seriously.
These issues are very personal to us at Clue, and so we wanted to tell women that we’re all in this together.
FTW: Why was it important for Clue to address the reversal of Roe v Wade? RW: We decided to talk about it because we believe abortion is healthcare, and that choice and healthcare and control and agency over one’s own health care are incredibly important.
When you are in hospital or a loved one is in pain, all the other stuff in the world that we worry about suddenly falls away because health is the most important thing that we have and the thing that carries us through life.
So, we believe that being able to have choice over your healthcare and have options that are safe and medically sound is crucial. Through our campaign, we wanted to emphasise that statement.
FTW: How about data protection?
RW: People are more and more aware of their data, and what can and can’t happen with it and where it can and can’t go and want to know they have control over it.
We have an app in a very intimate space and health data is really critical data. It’s important that people have access to products that meet the standards around privacy, but also transparency, visibility and traceability.
We know these are entirely voluntary for our type of product, but we believe it’s critical that we hold ourselves to the highest possible standard and that users can trust us.
A Clue billboard in Hamburg, Arkansas
FTW: Did you feel you made a difference with the campaign? What feedback did you receive?
RW: Yes, we did. We got amazing feedback from folks, and we found that things really cut through when we took a strong and humorous stand.
For us, it’s about normalising the conversations around menstruation, hormones and reproductive health, as they are huge parts of our health. Although these are often invisible topics in our day-to-day life, we want to put them front and centre and make them visible.
One of our users put it really beautifully, saying, “We all have different experiences, but we come together on the app.” And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.
FTW: What areas is Clue focusing on now?
A big area of focus for us now is data visualisation. We speak with users every week and one of the core pieces of feedback we get is, “I give you this data, can you give me something back”. I think this is where we need to do better on the app, and where I really think we can bring a lot of value to people.
At the moment, users are using the Clue app to figure out patterns and figure out what’s going on for them and that’s great. But we’re making them do the work and I don’t want them to have to do the work. They’re doing the work of entering the data, we should do the work of giving the insight back to them. So, that’s going to be a big area of focus for us over the coming months.
Another big area we want to focus on is continuing to improve the content we provide and making sure our resources help people understand the science and identify misinformation.
I’ve spoken with women and people with cycles all over the world and I’ve never spoken to anyone who has said, “Before I started tracking, I knew or understood my cycle”. That’s because nobody gets the right education, and no school system seems to do a good job in terms of educating people.
For us, continuing to lean into that it’s going to be really important that next few months.
FTW: Are you optimistic about the future of women’s helath?
I’m generally an optimistic person. And even though you might look at the state of women’s healthcare and think there’s a lot to be pessimistic about, I’m optimistic because I think having access to technology can be a very powerful thing: if you track you have data, and data equals insight, and insight equals agency, and agency equals choice and control of your life. That’s what we all want, right?
I believe that by having data we can have better conversations with our healthcare providers and take action sooner. Every time a femtech solution helps people shorten those distances to getting care I think is a good thing.
