The Campaign

Our creative idea #WhispersBreakSilence was an initiative to break the silence on periods and educate young girls so they would not fall prey to period superstitions and taboos down the line. Our campaign was based on the premise that in complete silence, even a Whisper can make a difference and a million Whispers together can create louder change. We made use of our largest asset – our Health and Hygiene program present in over 40,000 schools to break the silence on periods on-ground. To popularize our campaign, we released a digital film encouraging girls of all ages to break the silence around period superstitions in every form.

The Brief

Percentage of total budget: Digital Media: 53% Cinema: 21% Influencer Media: 26% Media spends are highly confidential.

Creative Execution

We first released a film titled #WhispersBreakSilence on our social media and in theaters to get the conversation on periods started. We then used our biggest asset, our Health and Hygiene program to take our campaign on-ground in over 40,000 schools across India. We taught young girls hitting puberty about periods and hygienic sanitary protection methods. To tackle the superstition of ‘baanjh’ (infertility), we handpicked teachers who were both mothers and pad users. We then maximized our campaign through Humans of Bombay, which posted testimonials of girls and educators from our on-ground activity.

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

Results: • 35 million girls across 40,000 schools impacted. We’re aiming to reach another 10 million girls in the next 2 years. • Our digital results were as follows: o Total Impressions: 37 million o Post Engagement: 4.3 million o Total Video Views: 2 million • There was a strong uplift of 17 points on purchase intent for sanitary napkins amongst those who had viewed the campaign. • Sanitary napkin penetration increased by 0.6% during the campaign period- a small but significant beginning of a slow but steady race towards driving conversion.

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

For our campaign #WhispersBreakSilence, we made use of our largest asset – our Health and Hygiene program present in over 40,000 schools to break the silence on periods on-ground. We educated 35 million girls on periods and the importance of using hygienic sanitary protection such that the right menstrual hygiene habits were inculcated in them from a young age. The school girls experienced the benefit of the whisper sanitary brand, and our teachers who were mothers conducted these classes to break fertility myths arounds sanitary napkins.

Our research suggested that women in India were not using sanitary napkins due to an age-old superstition, that should an animal touch a used pad, the woman will turn ‘baanjh’ (infertile). Infertility is considered a curse in the Indian society, and as such, women resorted to using archaic methods of sanitary protection, such as ash, sand, leaves and dust instead. We discovered that superstitions like these cultivated in girls’ minds only after they got their first period, and cemented, as they got older. We hence decided to reach out to them before they got their first period and educate them on the right menstrual hygiene methods, so they would not fall prey to this conditioning.