Serviceplan builds period care into Colombia’s school uniforms

The Brand Identity: In Colombia, school uniforms have long served as an equaliser. Standardised clothing eliminates visible markers of wealth, ensuring that every student walks through the school gates on the same footing. Socks, shoes, shirts and gym kits are all specified on procurement lists handed to parents at the start of each year, with vendors and distribution channels already embedded in the system.

What those lists have never included is anything relating to menstruation – despite the fact that one in four Colombian girls regularly misses school during her period due to stigma, shame or lack of access to products. The Period Uniform, developed by Colombian B Corp Somos Martina and Serviceplan Innovation, addresses this gap with disarming simplicity: add period underwear to the existing uniform checklist. Schools, not individual girls, initiate the conversation with parents. Procurement runs through the same vendors who already supply everything else. No new logistics, no separate programmes and no additional infrastructure.

Period protection becomes standard issue, as unremarkable as a pair of socks. “Uniforms are meant to create equality in the classroom,” explains Juliana Villegas, CEO of Somos Martina. “But for decades, they’ve excluded something half the students need every month.

It’s time to change that.” The initiative launched with a pilot at the public school Institución Educativa Mayor de Mosquera and has drawn support from Colombia’s Vice Minister of Education, who has voiced encouragement for broader conversations around menstrual health in schools from pre-school through to secondary level. Serviceplan Innovation, the R&D arm of Serviceplan Group, brought creative and strategic thinking to the campaign. Bogotá-based and operating with a team of nine people from six countries, the unit worked alongside an entirely female creative team spanning film, photography, illustration, journalism and medical expertise.

That composition shaped the process in tangible ways. “Our shared experience acted as a shorthand; we weren’t researching the stigma, we were translating it from lived reality,” explains Tanvi Phalak, Senior Art Director at Serviceplan Innovation. “Drawing on a range of personal perspectives, from first experiences to cultural context, ensured the work didn’t reflect a single point of view.” Phalak describes the decision-making as collaborative, with direction emerging through open discussion.

That approach is visible across the campaign’s outputs, which span film, illustration, photography, editorial writing and a bilingual website – each operating with a distinct visual register but connected by a shared language rooted in what Phalak calls “doodling.” The hand-drawn quality runs through the typography, the illustration and the interface, shaping how elements are drawn and composed across every touchpoint. At the campaign’s centre sits a short film by award-winning director Claudia Barral Magaz. Shot with girls who had never acted before, the film captures a teenager navigating her first period at school.

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This initiative represents a significant advancement in brand strategy by integrating social issues into product design, making it highly impactful and relevant for brand strategy professionals.