Intimates brand Nala wasted no time responding to a news story about women’s health doctor Dr Elise Turner being asked to leave an airport business lounge for pumping breast milk.
Within hours of the story breaking, the brand had a roaming billboard truck parked outside Virgin’s Sydney terminal and head office emblazoned with: “It’s just a boob. It’s 2025. It’s time to get comfortable. Nala xx.”
Dr Elise Turner
Co-founder Chloe de Winter told Mediaweek speed was essential. “As soon as we saw the incident, we were appalled and knew we wanted to do something. But we had to move fast in order to maximise the impact of the message, we had to respond in real time.”
With help from Nala’s PR agency MVMNT, the team came up with an idea by 4pm, with the campaign hitting the streets by 7.30am the next morning.
de Winter added that execution was a whirlwind: “In the space of a few hours we had sourced the billboard company, settled on the copy and graphic design.”
In the end the company went with its signature tagline ‘It’s just a boob’, something de Winter said “felt like the obvious choice”.
From start to finish, the campaign was rolled-out in under 15 hours.
Simone Holtznagel
A brand built on visibility
This isn’t the first time Nala has turned advertising into activism.
In 2023, the brand floated a giant inflatable breast down Melbourne’s Yarra River to protest tech-platform censorship. In 2024, it rolled out its Sorry to Offend You campaign featuring model Simone Holtznagel and her daughter Gia, sparking a backlash from Ad Standards.
For de Winter, controversy isn’t the goal, but honesty often looks that way. “We don’t set out to be controversial – it’s about telling it like it is. Sometimes the truth seems controversial because the status quo has sanitised women’s bodies for so long.”
de Winter is also clear that criticism hasn’t, and will never, deter them: “Backlash is part of the territory when you challenge norms. We expected it, but it didn’t change our mindset. If anything, we have doubled down. Challenging norms has always been part of what we do.”
The infamous floating boob
What success looks like
Unlike traditional brand campaigns, de Winter said this billboard isn’t about hard metrics. “This isn’t a stunt we measure on numbers. This was about getting a message across, supporting Elise and rallying our community. We’re building a brand that stands up for women, unapologetically. You can’t measure that.”
She sees brands like Nala as playing a critical role in shifting advertising norms around women’s health: “For too long, women’s bodies have been hidden, censored, or sexualised. Women’s bodies aren’t something to hide or be ashamed of. Countless times we’ve heard from our community that one of our campaigns made a customer feel seen by the fashion industry for the first time. That’s why we do what we do.”
And as for the future? Nala will continue to balance activism with brand building. “100%, but only when it feels true to us. By showing what we stand for, we keep the conversation about women’s bodies real, visible, and unapologetic. We also have traditional brand building strategies, but we view them as going hand in hand with each other.”