Brief Explanation

Whisper is a leading sanitary napkin brand in India that believes women can be unstoppable even on their period days. However, it was losing relevance amongst young urban women. Research pointed us to the force stopping young women – it wasn’t periods, but the culture of shame propagated by archaic period taboos. Whisper decided to challenge this culture of shame with the ‘Touch the Pickle’ movement. It started with a TV-ad that asked women to break period taboos. This immediately provoked interest. Interest that fuelled a series of branded content pieces with partners. CNN-IBN, a leading news channel opened up the conversation on period taboos with their award winning show Citizen Journalist. Added to that Whisper partnered with Mestrupedia, a comic book on menstrual education and awareness to educate young girls about period taboos.

The Brief

Whisper is a leading sanitary napkin brand in India that believes women can be unstoppable even on their period days. However, it was losing relevance amongst young urban women. Our task was to drive relevance by reasserting a new “contemporary conversation” about periods with young urban women, in a socially-interesting, fame-generating way.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The campaign got the attention of and engaged with young urban women: • The campaign achieved 73% unaided recall. • It generated free-media worth USD 6.1million. • Over 2.9million women participated and pledged to ‘Touch the Pickle’. • Over 1.9million 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%.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Whisper is a leading sanitary napkin brand in India that believes women can be unstoppable even on their period days. By challenging the culture of shame propagated by period taboos, Whisper’s ‘Touch the Pickle’ encouraged women to be unstoppable. It started with a TV-ad that asked women to break period taboos. This immediately provoked interest. Interest that fuelled a series of branded content pieces with partners. CNN-IBN, a leading news channel opened up the conversation on period taboos with their award winning show Citizen Journalist. Added to that Whisper partnered with Mestrupedia, a comic book on menstrual education and awareness to educate young girls about period taboos.