Name - Rhea Pradhan

Roll Number - PGP/23/412

Product - Sanitary Napkins

Brand - Whisper
Company - Procter & Gamble (P&G)
Category - Feminine Hygiene
Sector - FMCG

Criteria Key Factors Analysis

 Owned by PnG
Enjoys the trust and faith associated with PnG
 Top leaders in Sanitary
Synonymous with pads, enjoys the support of a large
Company Napkins sector
percent of women thanks to its taboo-breaking
 Present in rural and
advertisements and social cause support
urban markets

As the number of women grows in number the customer

 Females of menstrual
base will increase in general.
ages (12-40 years old)
Awareness of the need to use proper, sanitary products
 Females related to
for menstruating needs is increasing due to the efforts of
Customers menstruating females
various NGOs and government initiatives, hence the
(grandmothers, mothers,
demand will increase for female hygiene products
teachers, friends etc)
overall.
(>40 year old)
 Mostly premium buyers
Top 5 Competitors:
Each company has its own POD and POPs and thus they
 Stayfree – Johnson
often differentiate themselves on basis of material,
n’Johnsons
shape, carrying capacity, chemical usage, etc.. Due to
 Sofy – Unicharm
Competition increasing awareness about chemicals used or in general
 Kotex – Kimberly Clark
wariness of the materials used, customers may prefer
 VWash Wow – Vwash
other brands like Nua(chemical free) or
 Nua – Chemical free Anandi(biodegradable).
 Currently, all collaborators work in sync with the
 Suppliers
company. If for any reason, any link in this chain is
Collaborators  Distributors
hampered, it would ruin the entire process, and possibly
 Retailers
affect the supply and logistics of the system.ss
 Social – Breaking taboo
With the increasing income and innovation, and the
 Environmental – Plastic
taboo around periods reducing, increasing numbers of
awareness
girls are shifting to sanitary napkins instead of cloth etc.
 Technology – Increasing
Context/Macro thus the customer base is increasing.
innovation
Environment Increasing awareness about the plastic waste generated
 Economic – Increasing
by pads and tampons is causing women to shift to
income
biodegradable pads like Azadi, or menstrual cups
 Regulatory – GST (SheCup), reducing demand for Whisper’s current line.
Implications
Situation Analysis:
Situation Analysis:

Whisper is a brand under the vast umbrella of Proctor and Gamble, as a part of the Hygiene and
Health Care Division. Thus, it follows with the customer faith and quality assurance associated with
its parent company. It also has the advantage of being situated in both rural and urban areas, thus it
can cater to all audiences.

Currently enjoying the large market share it has garnered over the years with its taboo-breaking
marketing campaigns, Whisper has successfully won over its target audience despite coming in after
Stayfree. Its target audience can be defined into two segments, consumers and facilitators. Consumers
are those who actually use the product, that being females of ages 12-45 years. Facilitators are those
who buy the product, such as parents, grandparents, teachers etc… Whisper often prefers advertising
to a younger target group - teenagers and young adults. So, as the number of females increases, with
increase in population, the consumer base will increase in number. Also, various initiatives which
have been taken up in the recent past by the government, private institutions, corporates and NGOs
have led to a huge increase in awareness and a shift away from the detrimental thoughts which
associated menstruation to Impurity. Thus, women today are more aware of the need to use proper
sanitation material like sanitary napkins etc... during their periods. Thus, the demand for these goods
has increased.

There is intense competition in this sector, in a smaller number of players due to the presence of low-
priced units and a well spread network across rural and urban areas. While Whisper makes a profit
and enjoyed an increase in market share since 2017, Stayfree’s share went down. There’s other brands
like Kotex (Kimberly Clark), Carefree etc..

However, today, a lot of attention is focused on how to save the earth from plastic waste. This has
extended to saving the plastic used at large in sanitary napkins, as that cannot even be recycled after
pregnancy. Thus, a trending product today is biodegradable pads, such as those produced as
“Anandi”. There are also chemical free pads (Nua topper), cloth pads etc….

Besides the ecological environment some other things that affect demand may be the new
development in absorption technology or any innovation which may have happened. Also, politics
play an important role, as the decisions on the taxing policies affect the pricing and overall cost of the
product, and thus the demand will get affected.

However, the factor that played the biggest role in increasing sales of sanitary napkins for Whisper is
the social aspect. Through their advertising campaigns, they worked at the taboo associated with
menstruation and periods. Through various bold moves, they attempted to destigmatize the period
managing to become the market leader today.

Brand History:

Launched in 1989, and currently capturing about 50% of the sanitary napkin market, Whisper, entered
the market when Johnson & Johnson’s Stayfree was already a key player in the market under the
female health and hygiene sector.

It soon expanded its product line with new items like Whisper Ultra Clean and Whisper Ultra Soft.
 Taking over a market with an established player, backed by a firm (Johnson and Johnsons) that
everyone had faith in requires a stupendous marketing plan, connecting on a personal level with its
consumers.

Whisper was thus the first company to establish the brand tagline – “Have a Happy Period” tagline.
The use of word ‘Period’ implied breaking the taboo surrounding menstruation periods. This move
established Whisper as a bold and confident brand, especially considering its adversaries.

Since then, most of Whisper’s ads have centered around women and girl empowerment and how
periods should be a normalized aspect of the lives of everyone, male and females alike. Over time,
Whisper developed as a superior brand with better packaging and quality of product, as well as ads
which touched hearts of girls all around. From mothers and teachers consoling and teaching their
daughter about periods to a recent fun video with YouTuber group Girlyappa, where a little girl gets
her period for the first time and how her grandmother and mother teach her about it, advertising
Whisper’s First Period Kit.

Their biggest market capturing campaign was their “Touch the Pickle” campaign across the country,
all meant to break the variety of taboo associated with period time. This ad got over 1.8 million views
on YouTube and won a Grand Prix in Glass Lions category at Cannes Lions 2015.

Currently, as of 2018, Whisper stands at a 53.8% market share in India, while Stayfree stands at
30.2%.

Analysing the Competition:

Competing Competing
Selected Brand:
Elements of Marketing Plan Brand 1: Brand 2: Your Comments
Whisper
Stayfree Sofy
Market Share (2018)
Whisper easily
In the Health and Hygiene 53.8% 30.2% 1.3%
leads the market
Segment
 Expansion to
 Can expand into rural
 Increasing sell retail
markets Company
potential goods online
 Tie-ups with clinics, possesses varied
customers in Asian
hospitals and viable
 Increasing markets
Opportunities women opportunities to
awareness for  Products
organizations work on.
need for targeting the
(NGOs) However, the
sanitation and geriatric
 Can come up with challenge lies in
personal hygiene population.
innovative products the environment as
new entrants are
 Maturing cutting into the
 Lower costs of  Subsidized domestic market for
competitors products by the markets menstrual
 Subsidized government  Emergence of products, with new
Challenges products by the  Shift to trend shift to and innovative
government biodegradable and biodegradabl environment
 Shift to new chemical free e and friendly products.
products products chemical free
products
Business Strategy and Breaking social
Antibacterial
Marketing Objectives stigma and taboos
Pads
2015-16 about menstruation

Current Marketing Strategy

Target Segment(s)
14-20 year olds, 14-30 year olds,
(share of brand in different 14-30 year old COMMENTS
Premium buyers Mid-tier buyers
targeted consumer segments)
Using digital
Premium product Mid tier product While Whisper is
marketing,
for feminine a premium,
promoted towards
hygiene Linked to expensive product,
Positioning Statement millennial causes,
independent thought as compared to
encourages
Bold, all about and free thinking of Stayfree and Sofy,
women’s belief
social justice women and girls it still managed to
and aspirations
capture and lead
Have a Happy Ab waqt hai badalne the feminine
Tagline Sofy cool
Period ka! hygiene segment

Marketing Program as of now:

Product:

 Whisper believes in providing every woman a Happy Period. Thus, it has an extensive line of
products which covers all sorts of menstrual needs.
 Product Line:
o Whisper Ultra Regular Wing
o Whisper Ultra XL Wings
o Whisper Ultra Heavy Flow Overnights Wings
o Whisper Maxi Regular
o Whisper Maxi XL Wings
o Whisper Choice Regular
o Whisper Choice Wings
o Whisper Choice Ultra Wings.
 All these products are in the same category of sanitary napkins.

Price:

With a superior quality, Whisper has always been a premium product, priced above it’s competitors,
and its customers have been willing to pay this premium price. Hence, to cover the wideset spread of
customers and each possible segment, Whisper has expanded its range to the widest horizon as
enlisted above.

They also provide combo offers, especially a combination of their day and night packs.
Place:

Whisper is available almost everywhere, from pharmaceuticals and supermarkets, to kirana stores to
ecommerce websites.

Various channels are followed so that the product reaches the customer:
Promotion:

Whisper came into the market after the Stayfree had pretty much established itself as a key player in
the feminine health and hygiene sector. However, it still managed to overtake Stayfree and lead the
market by taking up over 50 % of the market share.

Whisper scored on the leaderboard thanks to it’s branding strategy. Its ads were all around social
issues like women empowerment, girl education etc…

They started by establishing a tagline - Have a Happy Period. The mentioning of the word period
garnered a lot of feedback and established Whisper as a bold and confident brand which is all set to
work on social issues to break the stigma against menstruation.

They had some major ad campaigns, like #TouchThePickle. with more than 1.8 million views on
YouTubers were encouraged to share the period taboos they had broken to inspire the world., or just buy
before I come.

Whisper launched a video with Girlyappa where a little girl has her periods for the first time, following
which, there is a long interaction between her conservative mother and open minded grandmother.

#OwnThose5Days

This is all about empowerment of a woman and enabling her to live life to the fullest.launch
on International Women’s Day, the campaign was an inspirational video featuring various
celebs from varied states and professional as a tongue twister.
Ashwini Ponnappa - Ace Badminton Player
Anahita Dhondy - Youngest Female Chess
Ayesha Aziz __ Female Pilot
Parineeti Chopra – Bollywood Actress

And now, the Future…

The pricing strategy seems to be working very well so far since with premium prices, Whisper was able to
overtake Stayfree and more than 50% of the market.

The products of Whisper are widely available, so distribution isn’t an issue anywhere either.
Their values are used for promotion, through CSR activities and various social projects, is also a wonderful
idea and has been very successful till date. Moreover, the recognition of periods and menstruation as a
normal process that doesn’t need to be hidden or for the woman to be ostracized is a thought that needs to
be promoted across our country. What better a medium than advertisements.

Thus, I believe for the future of Whisper, it is the competition yet to come, in this climate that needs to be
considered. Today, people everywhere are getting conscious of the fact that each action of ours can easily
harm the environment. Plastic waste is currently one of the biggest concerns we face.

“In 2018 alone, people in the U.S. bought 5.8 billion tampons, and over the course of a
lifetime, a single menstruator will use somewhere between 5 and 15 thousand pads and
tampons, the vast majority of which will wind up in landfills as plastic waste.”
Consider India, “Over the past few years, working with a wide range of stakeholders, the Menstrual
Hygiene Alliance of India (MHAI) has approximated that there are 336 million menstruating women
in India, of which 36 per cent use disposable sanitary napkins — that totals to 121 million women.

The number of sanitary napkins used per menstrual cycle — at a conservative eight — plus that for
the year, implies that India has 12.3 billion disposable sanitary napkins to take care of every year,
majority of which are not biodegradable/compostable.” Quoting from the magazine Down To Earth.

Considering these facts, it is important to come up with viable solutions to this problem of menstrual waste
management. There are various brands emerging in the Indian Market today.

 Saathi Pads – Completely biodegradable, made from the stems of banana trees
 Heyday – bamboo fibre and corm
 Nurture – hypoallergenic 100% cotton
 Vivanion – claims to have medicinal properties
 Azadi pads – biodegradable pads made by inducting rural women as entrepreneurs

And many more..

Further, there is also a trend observed where people believe in zero waste and reusing things as much
as possible. Here comes into the picture:

1) Reusable pads – which are washed after using, but haven’t been reported too positively
2) Menstrual Cups - These are silicon cups which can be reused easily. They possess various
benefits, like lower overall costs since it’s a one time investment, zero environmental harm and is
safer than tampons.

Looking at these developing trends, I believe Whisper should now diverge away from traditional pads and
expand to newer methods, to keep up with the times. Acquiring a brand of biodegradable pads and maybe
starting it’s own line of menstrual cups would open up Whisper to a newer audience. Keeping in mind the
huge faith and loyalty which people have towards Whisper already, women would feel better, more
assured of the quality, when using these products from their familiar brand, i.e. Whisper, than any rural
group.

Also, every brand has its life cycle and Whisper also needs to keep reinventing itself every now and then if
it wants to remain at the top. I believe that the way forward for Whisper would now be to invest in
environment friendly products

Marketing for this would involve promotion by ambassadors like Dia Mirza and Sonakshi Sinha or other
celebrities who care for the environment, targeted towards the millennial age group. Advertising would
majorly be done through social media, the easiest way to connect to millennials. Also, campus
ambassadors could be enlisted, from students on campus as a social initiative. Setting up workshops to
explain the concept of both the new products in colleges, malls, schools would also help.
Bibliography:
https://brandyuva.in/2019/03/marketing-strategies-of-whisper.html

https://whisperoutloudsite.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/whisper-as-a-brand/

http://www.portal.euromonitor.com/portal/StatisticsEvolution/index

https://www.momspresso.com/parenting/article/11-ecofriendly-sanitary-napkin-brands-that-every-indian-
women-should-know-about

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/health/the-mammoth-task-of-managing-menstrual-waste-in-india-
63376

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/how-tampons-pads-became-unsustainable-
story-of-plastic/

https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/Jy2Iy7TQIdeW4btePi1jWO/Sanitary-napkins-padded-in-
luxury.html