The Brief

Our goal was to drive relevance of Whisper by reasserting a new “contemporary conversation” about periods with young urban women, in a socially-interesting, fame-generating way. A detailed research with IPSOS amongst our target group – young urban women – pointed us to deep rooted period taboos still alive in the 21st century that feed a culture of shame leading to young women growing up with a disgraceful sense of self. Taboos like not entering the kitchen, and even not touching pickles, a daily Indian meal condiment, for fear they would rot with their touch.

Creative Execution

We needed to reach out to young urban women and spark a national conversation about period taboos. Here each element was designed to provoke the attention of the media and create advocacy. So we started with a TV spot that asked young women to boldly break period taboos by touching the pickle. This provocative message got the nation’s attention. Bollywood celebrities and real-life women-achievers stepped forward to draw in the audiences and spread the message. CNN-IBN, a leading news channel hosted a show called #LetsTalkPeriod. Radio-Jockeys across major cities conducted live debates. Aditi Gupta, founder Menstrupedia, took to the Ted-Talks stage. Comedians and women from different walks of life created compelling content to inspire young women to come forth and break taboos.

The campaign got the attention of and engaged with young urban women: • The campaign achieved 73% unaided recall. • It generated free-media worth USD 6.1 million. • Over 2.9 million women participated and pledged to ‘Touch the Pickle’. • Over 1.9 million views on YouTube for the ‘Touch the Pickle’ video. • Facebook engagement rate was 959 Index. • Whisper’s Share of Voice grew from 21.0% TO 91.2%.

In our research amongst young urban women aged between 16 to 24, we realised that deep rooted period taboos continue to prevail and feed a culture of shame that holds them back from doing most of the things in life. Whisper as a brand that stands for the emancipation of women decided to challenge the culture of shame propagated through period taboos. Thus was born the ‘Touch the Pickle’ movement.

English Translation of Main Headlines

To kick start the movement we needed to reach out to young urban women and spark a national conversation and debate about period taboos. So we started with a TV spot that asked young women to boldly break period-taboos by touching the pickle. This provocative message got the nation’s attention. Bollywood-celebrities and real-life women achievers stepped forward to spread the message. CNN-IBN, a leading news-channel hosted a show called #LetsTalkPeriod. Radio-Jockeys across major cities conducted live debates and Q&A sessions. Aditi Gupta, founder of Menstrupedia, took to the Ted talks stage. Comedians and women from different walks of life created compelling content to inspire young women and fuel conversations and debate on social media.