EVA ZINZI, ZEVA DESIGNS

Without a single Kenyan shilling to spend on advertising, Zeva Designs Founder Eva Zinzi created a line of clothing that not only reached 2.8 million social media views and earned $125,000 in media exposure, but it is literally saving the lives of women and girls in her home country of Kenya.

How? By exposing the critical harm of period shaming.

Zeva Designs launched in 2020. Primarily advertising through Instagram, the colorful designs caught the attention of marketing executive Megha Dutta, head of Creative for JWT Scanad.

As Zinzi explains, “We were in contact for a while, and I got to know her [Dutta] and her passion for advertising. When Senator Gloria Orwoba got period shamed in parliament, it was a no-brainer to come together and speak up against such a despicable act. So, we brainstormed and came up with the idea.”

Dutta elaborates, “When the parliament incident happened on February 14, 2023, it inspired or rather shocked us into action. We co-created this campaign to normalize the sight of period stains through her clothes and rally the government to make period shaming a punishable offense.”

The #stainnotshame campaign was officially created through a partnership between Zeva Designs and SCANAD Africa and launched in 2023, on International Women’s Day.

Within the first three weeks of launching the eight-piece “Stain Not Shame” capsule collection, which featured colorful clothing with custom-printed bright red pops of color representing period stains (designed by Jesse Okumu), Kotex officially joined the campaign.

Stain Not Shame

COLLECTION is a collection of eight designs launched on the eighth of March to celebrate women and to bring awareness to the plight facing young girls and women in Kenya.

Fast forward to 2023: The Stain Not Shame campaign has had massive success, in both the marketing industry and within Kenyan society. The campaign took home a Silver Lion for PR Culture, a Bronze Lion for Social and Influencer Culture, and a Bronze Glass Lion for Social Change at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June 2023. It also contributed to an important decision within the Kenyan government. Just one month after the launch of the campaign, Honorable Harriette Chiggai, advisor on women’s rights to Kenyan President Dr. William Ruto, announced an official pledge to create an anti-period shaming policy under the Kenyan Penal Code.

Both Zinzi and Dutta have been quite moved by the experience.

“This campaign evoked in all of us a strong sense of sisterhood of shared shame,” Dutta says. “We saw so many women and men come together to support this action, from influencers to students to senators. The campaign really gave everyone a symbol of solidarity.

Professionally, [the campaign] brought home Kenya’s first Glass and PR Lions and Scanad’s first Social and Influencer Lion. But there is a lot still to be done, so here’s hoping, and celebrating!”

Zinzi echoes, “Personally it’s been life-changing. I didn’t expect it to go viral. I was simply using my skill as a form of activism and hoped that the campaign would spark a conversation around period shaming, something that has plagued my country and tormented girls and women for a long time (an extreme instance leading to death). This campaign allowed me to look at fashion not just as a business but also as a tool I can use to speak up against the ills plaguing society. Businesswise, this was a step in the right direction. The designs were worn by some of the most popular influencers with millions of followers. This, in turn, came with a lot of media coverage, an increase in followers, and the growth of my brand equity.”