Giggle app's billboard at University of Pennsylvania state "female spaces are necessary" for Women’s History Month.

Women's only social networking app "Giggle" has impeccable timing, as they booked a billboard at the University of Pennsylvania state for the entirety of Women’s History Month, and it was still up yesterday when University of Pennsylvania trans swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA D-I title, a topic that exploded on social media and is likely also why the new adidas ad is bombing.  

Giggle is an app designed for women only, that uses AI to keep out non-women. That is, to keep out men.

Giggle has also just moved to a new site, where even the URL states "Female spaces are necessary" to sum up the app idea. 

Giggle has been skewered by some would-be users, and in the press for the core concept of the app, which is so simple: "a place for females only", with a journalist calling it "a nightmare and terrible idea." That hasn't discouraged Giggle's CEO Sall Grover who cheerfully carries on. On the first day of Women's history month, she tweeted a photo of the billboard: 

Female spaces are necessary, at UPenn where this billboard is situated, and everywhere else in the world.

This billboard will be up for the entirety of Women’s History Month.

💗🙋‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/V5UkHzGcGZ

— Sall Grover (@salltweets) March 1, 2022

Adland: You plan to keep this billboard up for the entire women's history month. Was there a particular reason that you picked the University of Pennsylvania as the space for this message?
Can you elaborate on that?

Sall Grover: We chose the University of Pennsylvania because female students there are having to undress in change rooms with a male, they have spoken out about how uncomfortable they are with it and they want to maintain their female-only spaces and they’re being ignored. I wanted it to be made clear to these female students that they have support. 

Adland: Tell us a little about why you created your app. 

Sall Grover:  I had spent 10 years in Hollywood as a screenwriter, where I experienced a lot of sexual assault & harassment. When #MeToo happened, a lot of other women and I in Hollywood connected and revealed to each other the experiences we’d had. There wasn’t an opportunity to connect with women on a regular basis, online, away from men. Eventually, I was in therapy recovering from the sexual assault & harassment and my therapist continued to tell me that I needed a strong female support network in my life. My mum and I would talk about this a lot over an evening drink and, one night, we just decided to do it. We had no idea how to do it but we learned and made it happen. 

Adland: Has the billboard received any complaints yet? 

Sall Grover:  No! The support and response has been absolutely amazing.