Advertising in women's health: balancing innovation and ethics
Advertising in women's health: balancing innovation and ethics
Without advertising how will women know about your life-changing products?
Balancing your start-up’s growth with ethical advertising can be a challenge - particularly in women’s health where the barriers to getting a message across can be high. In this guest article, Palteq Ltd founder Monica Cutler shares her view on the marketing landscape in FemTech and women’s health.
A double-edged sword?
As a 90s child Saturday nights meant Gladiators. When the ad breaks hit it was like a secret signal: time to dash for a cup of tea, take a bathroom break, check on your Tamagotchi. Anything to avoid sitting through five minutes of commercials. Even back then, adverts were something we instinctively dodged.
Fast forward to today, and ads have become an unavoidable part of life. From the moment you unlock your phone you're met with a stream of targeted ads, often before you’ve even had your first sip of matcha.
Advertising can feel like a double-edged sword. It’s a powerful tool that connects groundbreaking solutions to the women who need them most. But it exposes us to a marketplace filled with dubious claims and frustrating censorship. Yet, without advertising, how will women ever know about the life-changing products you’ve worked so hard to develop?
Advertising builds awareness, trust and a foundation for the future
Women’s health has long been underserved and overlooked. This is why advertising is indispensable. It serves our individual and community successes while normalising conversations around women's health. When we advertise, yes, we’re selling products but we’re also building awareness, trust, and laying a foundation for a healthier future.
Our ads can be the bridge that connects women to solutions they didn’t even know existed. When our products are visible, we give women the power to make informed decisions about their health and facilitate a pathway to a healthier future.
Advertising drives the sales that keep our businesses afloat. Every sale sends a message. It’s proof that women’s health deserves attention. It challenges the outdated belief that investing in this space isn’t worthwhile. Each success story shows the world that women’s health innovations are marketable and essential.
Even for those who don’t purchase, ads prompt important conversations that may have never been spoken otherwise. When women share their experiences, we build a community—a powerful force in the world of women’s health.
And when our ads reflect a community’s worth of bodies and experiences, we’re making women’s health innovations accessible to everyone.
Bad advertising damages trust in the whole sector
Women’s health ads have potential to drive awareness that leads to increased education, stronger community, emotional relatability, and, of course, revenue.
But realistically, it’s not all revenue and roses.
Unethical ads undo the trust and credibility that genuine innovators work so hard to build. When misleading products flood the market they make women’s health solutions seem like just another gimmick, or worse, an outright scam. The real risk here is that consumers, disappointed by dubious products, become jaded and give up on Femtech altogether. Can we afford to lose them? Do we want the people who need these products most to write the whole industry off as a racket?
Molly Fenton BCAh, Founder of the Love Your Period campaign, highlights how dangerous bad ads can be, especially to children and vulnerable people:
"I first noticed this when my TikTok feed was flooded—every three scrolls, there was an ad for some women’s supplement or £30 greens powder. These ads were usually promoted by everyday influencers with no qualifications, just trying to make a commission. The wildest was a pH-balancing vaginal product.
"The comments were even more alarming, with kids as young as eight asking if they could take these products. There’s a real ethical issue here, with a lack of education and meaningful conversation. It’s a big concern, but also a massive marketing opportunity."
The rise of the accountable influence movement
There’s a wider conversation to be had about the responsibility of social platforms, how accessible these products are for children, and how influencers share review-style content.
Partnering with healthcare professionals will always be the best endorsement, but we don’t have to rule out micro influencers and UGC style content. Instead we need to ensure influencers understand the impact of their promotions on audiences.
The accountable influence movement has already started with programs from Needed Academy and Seed University. They’re championing education and battling the spread of misinformation by only accepting partners who have completed their training.
Despite this progress, there’s no denying that unsubstantiated claims push women further away from trusting real, effective solutions and it is indeed an issue of ethics.
Community over censorship
And it’s not just consumers who face challenges. You’ve no doubt experienced platform censorship when sharing content about women’s health. It’s a constant battle to get our message out while navigating restrictions that seem to target legitimate products. What’s a founder to do?
Censorship might block our ads, but it doesn’t have to block our message. By focusing on community-building and creating content that resonates, we can keep the conversation going and reach women in meaningful ways.
When community informs your advertising all you need to do is centre your messaging on things that matter to your audience. For instance, in the sphere of marketing regulatory compliance is more than a process your product went through. It’s a bragging right!
Let’s not forget today’s consumers are smart. Instead of hype alone we need to focus on educating them. When women understand what our products can do, they’re more likely to trust us, tell their friends, and become lifelong customers.
The same goes for listening to our audience. Engaging and showing we’re listening lays the foundation for long-term relationships. Who hasn’t loved witnessing Unfabled’s essentials range roll out, along with their “You asked. We delivered” messaging?
Compliance and listening to your audience may seem like basics. But if these are hallmarks of your brand, you are delivering a gold standard that sets you miles ahead of questionable brands with dubious products. Take those basics and shout about them. They mean a lot to your community.
Conclusion
Balancing growth with ethical advertising is a challenge. We have a responsibility to protect hard-earned trust in women’s health innovation. At times, advertising may seem like a necessary but costly evil.
You may wonder, is it worth it?
Just remember you’re contributing to a healthier future. There’s no ROAS for that.
About the author: Monica Cutler is founder of Palteq Ltd, a marketing agency that delivers rising ROAS for femtech founders and women’s health innovators.
This article is part of a paid partnership with Palteq Ltd.