It’s now been 15 years since Menopause Awareness Month was first observed.
Yet despite being on the map for more than a decade, it still isn’t quite as visible as some more familiar health awareness-themed months.
Elevating the awareness of menopause — a condition that impacts half of the population — is something that Progyny, a company focused on fertility, family building, and women’s health benefits, hoped to change this year with the launch of its Press Play on ‘Pause campaign.
Though menopause is an expected part of life for women as they age, it still carries a significant stigma that causes most women to avoid talking about the subject of seeking treatment from a care provider.
“We have so much conversation happening right now that it doesn’t have to be that way,” Katie Higgins, Progyny’s chief commercial officer, says. “There are so many different opportunities to impact quality of life through this transition, but we don’t get there unless we talk about it.”
Fostering conversation was the focus of the month-long campaign, which featured a line-up of women business leaders, healthcare providers, companies and other thought leaders.
The roster was assembled by leveraging Progyny’s social media platforms to break the silence around menopause. Posts on the company’s LinkedIn and Instagram accounts highlighted individual patient stories and practical steps that businesses are taking to support employees.
Among the contributions that Higgins found especially compelling were Shelly Zalis, from The Female Quotient, as well as Latham Thomas, founder of maternity lifestyle brand Mama Glow.
Large employers, including Danone and Synchrony, joined in the conversation to underscore the importance of providing menopausal benefits to workers.
While Higgins describes menopause as a topic that was taboo for many years, she believes the conversation has recently become more open and visible – in part due to some of the women who participated in Press Play on ‘Pause.
“I’ve been in healthcare for almost 30 years now,” she says. “What I see is that you have a number of female leaders in healthcare, which has long been male-dominated. Now, these leaders in healthcare are reaching midlife, taking a step back and saying, ‘Wait, why are we accepting the fact that there are so many hard-to-deal-with symptoms of this normal life transition that all women are going to go through?’”
Much of the month’s programming focused on employer benefits, a conversation that Progyny also encourages through resources on its website including a Talk to HR page that aims to encourage employees to raise the topic of benefits across the women’s health timeline.
At the end of the month, the company also shared an article that provided menopause-specific suggestions to readers.
Progyny’s month-long effort sparked conversations and clearly drove traffic. Website visits to the company’s midlife page were eight times higher in October compared to September and 66% of that increased activity was from direct social clicks from LinkedIn and Meta.
Ultimately, the campaign amassed 1.2 million impressions and had an average cross-channel engagement rate of 4.15%.
Higgins noted that the employers Progyny engaged with during the campaign say there has been a noticeable change in the narrative, noting that female employees are not at all shy about talking about menopause.
“[Employers] are feeling the pressure from their own employee populations as well as just greater awareness that this is a medical condition that has previously not gotten much attention or coverage,” she says. “You have to place a greater investment in women’s health and this is a key component of that.”
While Menopause Awareness Month is over, Higgins says to expect more coverage of the topic in the future from Progyny.
“We have reached a point where that doesn’t have to be the answer,” she says. “Breaking that longstanding silence around menopause by empowering individuals with education and resources and specialty care providers and a support system is our goal. That is how we will have the best impact on quality of life for women in midlife.”
