I remember discussing the issue of sanitary napkins with my then boss, P S Viswanathan (Vish), in 1979. He had worked as a product manager at Johnson & Johnson, which owned Stayfree and Carefree. He was part of the team that launched sanitary napkins in India. He had told me that contrary to the generally held opinion, urban Indian consumers were willing to accept modern sanitary napkins. He spoke about how J&J had trained chemists to pack sanitary napkins in innocuous brown paper bags. His observation studies showed that once the napkin was well-hidden, women in even the conservative south Indian city of Madurai were open to walking home with it.
India has, unfortunately, had a love-hate relationship with sanitary napkins. In the Doordarshan era, sanitary napkins were allowed to be advertised only after 10 pm (something I have written about in my book, Nawabs, Nudes, Noodles – India Through 50 Years of Advertising). Quite strangely, Nirodh condoms and birth-control messaging used to occupy air time during peak hours.
The key target audience for sanitary napkins – teenage, schoolgoing girls – were probably fast asleep when Stayfree, Whisper, and Carefree ads ran on TV.
In yet another quirk of policy, sanitary napkin-makers were mandated not to show the colour red (to signify menstrual flow). The ads used to show blue ink being poured on the napkin. It is only in the last decade that some of these rules have been relaxed.
Brands are now going all out to speak a lot more confidently about menstrual hygiene, and are willing to go beyond the traditional blue ink. In a Stayfree ad that ran a few years ago, #TellYourSonIt’sJustAPeriod, the brand made a bold attempt to reframe the narrative. Girls’ problems, after all, are often compounded by the insensitivity of boys. What if the boys were told about periods? What if they were made to appreciate the difference in human bodies? What if they became more empathetic to the troubles a girl goes through during her periods?
Why not remove the taboo around the word ‘period’?
Interestingly, Thinx’s “MENstruation” campaign, launched in 2019 in the United States with the hashtag #IfWeAllHadPeriods, challenges societal stigmas by imagining a world where everyone, regardless of gender, menstruates. The campaign tries to normalise conversations about periods, while promoting the brand’s period-proof underwear.
In marketing literature, taboo products are those that are seen as ‘unmentionable’ or ‘socially sensitive’ goods and services, which are generally considered embarrassing and inappropriate to discuss and consume in public. These products often relate to bodily functions, sex, religion, and death. Brands try to find their way around the restrictions by using surrogate advertising (liquor), leveraging humour (condoms), educational content and breaking-the-taboo campaigns (sanitary napkins).
It is heartening that young entrepreneurs are looking at this problem seriously. We all know of the movie Padman, based on the real life story of the economical sanitary napkin pioneer, Arunachalam Muruganantham. Two Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) engineers started a company, Saral Design, which makes effective sanitary napkins. They also make machines that can democratise napkin-making. Incidentally, the IIT Bombay alumnus who founded this company was inspired to act on the problem while on an exploration train journey where she learnt about the travails of the poor girls in rural India.
Last week, I was taken through the marketing of the Indian menstrual cup brand, Sirona, by my students at the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research. Their presentation highlighted the hard work the brand was doing to overcome consumer resistance towards a new way of managing periods, pretty similar to the struggle of sanitary napkin brands in the 1970s, when young girls were told to use a rag by their mothers.
Helping girls manage periods has a larger economic effect. If we have to continue with our growth trajectory as a country, we will have to bring more women into the workforce. That can happen only if girls are encouraged to complete their education, which can happen only if female hygiene is given importance in schools and colleges.
This is not an issue for the girls alone to deal with. There is a need to enlist boys and men to fasttrack the mindset shift. Getting the powers that be to understand the difference and the importance of female hygiene is a much-needed step. The top court has spoken. Now it is up to the administration to ensure last-mile execution.
The writer is an independent brand strategist. His latest book, Marketing Mixology, looks at the four essential skills for marketing success
 "MENSTRUATION, WOMEN, HEALTH")