An early July post on the TikTok account for Evofem Biosciences’ Phexxi birth control has sparked a surge in interest in the nonhormonal gel without even talking about the product—and perfectly sums up the brand’s ethos, according to Evofem CEO Saundra Pelletier.
The post played on the “microfeminism” trend that first gained popularity online last year, in which people share the subtle ways they uplift and empower women in male-dominated spaces, such as by listing women before men in email address fields and on contracts.
Phexxi took the concept a step further, asking users to share their most “unhinged” microfeminist habits. Some popular responses, for example, describe complimenting men on their “pixie cuts,” referring to groups as “ladies and the sons of ladies” and countering being addressed as “young lady” by calling the speaker “old man.”
To date, in less than three weeks, the post has garnered 10.6 million views, nearly 1 million likes and almost 25,000 comments. In an interview with Fierce Pharma Marketing last week, Pelletier said Evofem has also seen a tripling in the number of overall visitors to the Phexxi website since the post went viral, while the number of healthcare professional visitors specifically has jumped 36%.
“The biggest reason why that matters is some people say, ‘Oh, social media, is that really results-driven?’ Yes, it is. Because the more women who know about Phexxi, and the more providers that know about Phexxi, the bigger the groundswell,” Pelletier said.
“We have seen such a big response to this that I want to pinch myself,” she continued, noting that she’d had to triple-check that the numbers were correct before sharing them with Fierce.
And, while the results may have been a pleasant surprise, it wasn’t for lack of trying: “We were 100% praying and hoping we would go viral,” Pelletier said.
Indeed, Phexxi’s social media accounts are full of posts similarly aiming to start conversations and joining in on popular meme trends to appeal to an audience of Generation Z and millennial women, often without any mention of the product itself. Next up, according to the CEO, the brand plans to make August “Say Vagina Month,” encouraging social media users to say “vagina” as often as possible throughout the month to combat the phenomenon of accounts being “shadow-banned” when the word is used online.
The far-reaching social media approach and microfeminism post in particular exemplify Evofem’s efforts to differentiate itself from other drugmakers, according to Pelletier.
“We want to be different than pharma. We want to be different than regular companies that promote prescription products,” she said, pointing to how branding and marketing materials for those competitors are typically “commercially, aesthetically” perfect.
“That’s not real: That’s not what real women are, that’s not how we live,” she said. “We want to be organic. We want to be raw. We want to be able to show real people work at this company; we give a shit about women in a way that we think, frankly, is better and more authentic; and we really want to talk about things that we think might be unpopular.”
That includes the concept of microfeminism, where Pelletier admitted to being “a little bit nervous” about “swinging for the fences” and aligning the Phexxi brand with the trend, especially since vocal feminism can often become a target for controversy online.
The big swing appears to have paid off, however, and the alignment makes sense for the brand and its commitment to being “unapologetic” and outspoken about its values, according to the CEO, who noted that “silence has never helped women—never.”
Among those values is a crusade against the double standards that still face women. Phexxi’s contraceptive gel seeks to “empower women with sex on demand,” she said, evening the playing field in which men have long had access to on-demand contraception in the form of condoms.
The nonhormonal gel was approved by the FDA in 2020. It lists a pregnancy prevention efficacy rate of 93% when used as directed and 86% with typical use, compared to a typical-use efficacy rate of 87% for condoms and 93% for the combination birth control pill.
“Big Pharma has had gobs of money. They could have come out with an on-demand product [for women]; they could have come out with a nonhormonal product. But no, they didn’t. They did something quick and easy, which is, ‘Let’s just give women another way to get synthetic hormones, because it’s quicker and less expensive,’” Pelletier said.
“So, the Phexxi brand is about doing the right thing, not necessarily the easiest thing, and it’s about empowering women so that they don’t have to overmedicate themselves.”