In 1961 a menstrual cup brand made history as the first company to advertise its product on a larger than life billboard in Times Square. Hard to believe this is true considering that most people assume the menstrual cup is a device only invented in the last decade. Tassette, a menstrual cup made of natural rubber and first sold in 1937, made another attempt at selling the public on cups in the early 1960s and their Times Square billboard was only part of their wider effort.
Menstrual cups are reusable tampon alternatives but the product is a contemporary invention to the tampon rather than one designed in response to it. Tampons date back to 1931 but the first menstrual cup patent was filed in 1932 and similar early menstrual cup design concepts date as far back as the 1800s. Tassette, a cup designed by Leona Chalmers, is frequently listed as the first modern menstrual cup. While this is false, the brand and Leona Chalmers made a larger impact in both the business world and in efforts to mainstream the product. That is why Chalmers and the Tassette cup are most often cited as the first menstrual cup.
Thanks to the wartime rubber shortage, Tassette faced a pause in production in the early 1940s as one of their challenges. In 1958 Leona Chalmers sold her business to an investor after 2 decades of off-and-on attempts to sell her product by mail order and via a small number of drug and department store chains. The investor, Robert Oreck, created Tassette Inc and hoped to make the menstrual cup a new sensation. According to Oreck, he was not initially interested in the idea when Chalmers approached him. Only after the enthusiastic endoresement of his wife, who tried the product, did he decide to take on the challenge.
The company enlisted a NY marketing firm, Weiss & Geller, who put together a marketing package of billboards, radio spots, and newspaper ads for Tassette at the cost of about $200,000. That’s over 2 million dollars in 2023. Tassette Inc was also a publicly traded company and listed on NASDAQ. Other than Tampax (now owned by Procter and Gamble), who make their own menstrual cup as of 2018, and Essity (a Swedish-based company selling primarily single-use period brands but with a cup model) no other menstrual cup brand has been publicly traded.
The signmaker, Artkraft Strauss, was tasked with creating the billboards. Artkraft Strauss was instrumental in creating the ads that made Times Square – including the infamous smoking Camel ad. Thanks to newspaper clippings shared by the Museum of Menstruation I was aware that a billboard existed and decided to track down more about it. It’s historically significant as the very first period product to advertise in Times Square but it has received barely a mention.
Until today the only pieces of information around this groundbreaking billboard were the clippings on Mum.org, some in poor condition from older photocopy machines. Unable to find records of those original articles in the archives, I kept looking for information. Using the address, Broadway and 46th, I was able to find the general location of the billboard. And using the date of the articles, March 1961, alongside the small sliver of scenery in the articles with a visible “A,” those details helped locate the precise location. The 40 by 60 ft. billboard (another article says the size is 30 by 40 ft.) hung above the Thom McAn shoe store and next to the famous Times Square Horn & Hardart Automat – a self-service cafeteria and iconic landmark.
With the location nailed down and the timeframe that brought more luck. I found multiple photos depicting Times Square in 1961. The first I found is quite a well-known photo and is available through Wikimedia commons in glorious high resolution. Unfortunately for me, the image cuts off the Tassette billboard, which is just barely visible to knowing eyes. Given that Times Square is a popular subject for professional and amateur photographers I felt pretty confident I could find the billboard in the background of an image.
After scouring every photo taken of 1960s Times Square I could find I was able to find a color photograph with the first Tassette billboard visible in just one shot. Thanks to these two images the black and white, lifeless photocopies of the ad were now visible in their original vibrant blue.
The ad was fairly straightforward and read “NOW a better way! Not a tampon, Not a napkin!” with a tulip to the left and a hand holding the Tassette cup pouch to the right.
Not only that, but I also spotted another, previously unknown Tassette billboard hiding in plain sight in various photos from the 1961 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This new billboard depicted a tulip to represent the cup with the phrase “flower-like monthly protection.” The ad also exclaimed “Medically Approved.” Tassette spent considerable time testing this new product before it was re-launched in the 1960s under Robert Oreck’s new company. So far I can only find black and white photos of this ad but I assume it was the same vibrant blue background as the first billboard.
The significance of the Tassette billboards is just one piece of the story. As part of the larger media campaign, Weiss & Geller also made sure that Tassette was the first period product advertised on the radio. After favorable on-air tests in a few markets, the menstrual cup was advertised on radios in metro areas. Listeners would have heard “‘Tassette’–have you heard about ‘Tassette’? The only periodic protection that’s guaranteed to meet your every need…” in 20-30 second spots through their radio speakers.
Soon after, in what appears to be a direct response to Tassette’s radio campaign, radio advertisement codes were later proposed that regulated “feminine products.”
The Tassette story is equal parts inspiring and an indictment of how hostile a capitalist economy is for reusable brands. Despite strong sales during their second attempt in the 1960s, estimates say Tassette sold about 100,000 units, the company never found true success. In 1969 Tassette created a “disposable” version of their cup, the Tassaway, and hoped to find more customers and more financial success with a product intended for just one use. The Tassaway met its end a few short years later, carrying a debt of millions to their advertising company.
Leona W. Chalmers spent the last part of her life creating and promoting the Tassette cup with the passion of someone who truly believed in its life-changing features. Given that she started this endeavor later in life she never lived to see the modern cup renaissance started initially by Keeper Cup and Lou Crawford, an original customer of Tassette.
Perhaps I am so drawn to her story since the work I do today so closely mirrors the same advocacy she undertook nearly 100 years ago. To promote her product she aimed to provide frank educational resources through her books and ad campaigns. Today I do the same through social media, this website, and at in-person workshops as a speaker. It took around 70 years for Leona Chalmers’ cup concept to reach mainstream awareness against single-use disposable tampons and pads. And still today the cup is a small but scrappy competitor in a multi-billion dollar period product landscape. Frustratingly, the same advertising codes used against Tassette are used against my store and other brands who attempt to advertise their cups, period underwear, and other products in physical and online media even today. Groups like the Center for Intimacy Justice continue to push back against ad policies that limit and censor period ads.
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