Product Introduction:

Product	Whisper Sanitary Napkins
Parent Company	Procter & Gamble (P&G)
Category	Hygiene and Health Care
Sector	FMCG
Tagline/ Slogan	Have a Happy Period!

Introduction:

Procter & Gamble Co., better known as P&G, is an American multinational consumer goods company. It is headquartered in Ohio, the United States of America. William Procter and James Gamble, both from the United Kingdom, were the founders of P&G. The product range of P&G is huge. P&G has not just expanded its name in USA but across the world. Standing amongst India’s leading Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Companies, P&G Hygiene and Health Care Ltd has a turnover greater than Rs. 500 crore. P&G Hygiene and Health Care Ltd. and P&G Home Products Ltd. are two of P&G subsidiaries.

One of the revolutionary products launched in India by P&G in the year 1989 was Whisper sanitary napkins. An innovatory product in itself, Whisper sanitary napkin was designed in the benefit of Indian women’s personal hygiene.

Holistic or Sustainable Marketing:

Holistic Marketing or Sustainable Marketing refers to styles of marketing approach that incorporates the basic needs of the customer, the society and the organization in general, and a nation as a whole over a long term. Holistic Marketing covers various factors such as ecological marketing, corporate social responsibility and many more. All the processes which lead to an enhanced relationship with the consumers by directly supplying of goods and services needed by them can also categorized under holistic marketing.

Whisper as a brand has always aimed to work towards a social cause, which is very evident in its marketing, advertising and branding as well. Be it the #Touchthepickle campaign, where it talks about abolishing the social myths associated with menstruating women or be it “Have a Happy Period” campaign where it talks about coming out of the closet and celebrate womanhood without any taboos. The ‘Shiksha’ campaign launched in India is another such initiative, often featured as TVCs on the Indian television and on the internet. It is a core Procter & Gamble’s FMCG products initiative which helps and supports the underprivileged children of India to gain access to a better life and education.

The e-commerce giant Flipkart has recently collaborated with FMCG major Procter & Gamble’s signature CSR campaign ‘Shiksha’ in its unique initiative. A part of the revenue earned by Flipkart over the P&G products goes for the ‘Shiksha’ campaign. 

The consumers can purchase the P&G products from Flipkart and support the P&G ‘Shiksha’ campaign that helps the underprivileged children in India get access to education.

Analyzing Business Markets:

Business marketers often come across the same challenges as consumer marketers. In particular, understanding their consumers and customers and also their values are of paramount importance to both.

The buyers of the business or the customers face numerous decision dilemmas in marking a purchase. The basic three types of buying situation that a customer faces are:        

Straight rebuy - the purchasing department of any organisation reorders supplies i.e., bulk sanitary napkins on a scheduled basis and selects from suppliers on approved list. These suppliers especially make an extra effort to maintain product and service the quality of the product and more than often also propose automatic reordering systems in order to save time.

Modified rebuy - the buyer wants to change any specifications of the product for example prices, delivery requirements etc. This process usually requires additional participants on both the parties.

New task - Its mainly when a purchaser buys a product or service for the first time). The greater the cost or risk, the bigger the number of participants, and the superior their information gathering would be - the longer the time they will take for a decision. The new-task buying process goes through more than a few stages: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption.

Branding:

Whisper understands that every girl is unique, we are each very special, and hence offers a wide range of sanitary napkins to suit the needs of every girl and woman. Whisper is the brand which ensures that with the correct menstrual pad, a young girl could take the first step towards having a Happy Period!

As far as branding of Whisper is considered it is one of the classic examples of brand building in the country. It entered the market when Johnson & Johnson’s Stayfree was already a key player in the market under the female health and hygiene sector. With its unique marketing strategy of focusing on the social issues, Whisper has attained a premium brand status because of its high quality sophisticated packaging.

A very interesting observation to highlight in the whisper commercials are that the subject in the TVC i.e., the young girls are wearing the same colored clothes as the Whisper Sanitary Napkins i.e.,  a combination of Green and White, which clearly reflects the acceptance of the brand into the lives of the the TG. The same connotation can be observed during public affairs and media promotions of the brand.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning:

Segmentation:

Whisper Sanitary Napkins caters to a specific age group ranging between 15 yrs to 30 yrs. Whisper being a premium product targets the urban class of the society and gratifies to their respective needs. The aspirational young female segment is also another section of the demographic that Whisper product range caters to. Whisper’s teen marketing has successfully been able to cultivate consumer loyalty simply because the youth keep on using the product into their adult lives.

Targeting:

Whisper Sanitary Napkins cannot expect to grow by offering the same products as its competitors especially when its competitors are launching almost similar range of products in the market targeting Whisper’s consumers that too at a lower price. Whisper must offer a point of difference that will make consumers want to re-purchase Whisper Sanitary Napkins rather than its competitor’s products. The “point of difference” that makes Whisper distinctive as compared to competitors falls into four important categories:

Brand Experience:	Whisper does not only think of promoting its products but it impacts the audiences with a social cause, which creates a high recall value in the mind of the consumers. The high product sale is the secondary advantage attained by the social marketing. Whisper has been successful in satisfying its consumers physically as well as mentally.
Brand Quality:	Whisper has been recognized for exceeding expectations of its consumers by constantly delivering the quality of their products. This is what will build the loyalty among its consumers.
Perceived Health:	Since the penetration of sanitary napkins across India is below 20%, women often end up using other means during their menstruation cycle, which in turn leads to many hygiene related issues. Whisper offers a completely safe to use hygienic method for menstrual aid, which makes it more perceivable by the masses.
Convenient Access:	Whisper is almost available everywhere in the country and more over it has now started selling its products online, which makes it even more easily available than before.

Positioning:

Whisper since the very beginning has been perceived as a premium product. With its high quality sanitary napkins, huge range of variety of sanitary napkins and ease of availability consumers are willing to pay a premium price for their favorite product.

As Whisper extends its product line with its new products Whisper Ultra Clean and New Whisper Ultra Soft, it also faces competitors like Stayfree. Therefore, in order to retain its position as a leading brand in the minds of its consumers Whisper needs to connect at a more personal level with its consumers. Whisper aims to attain this connection with the help of the social campaigns, which run on television, internet and appear as an outdoor hording as well.

Promotions:

The marketing of Whisper as a brand is a phenomenal case of brand building in India. When Whisper was launched in 1989, the initial advertisements were striking ones featuring mother talking about educating the daughter about using sanitary napkins. The reason behind such huge popularity of Whisper is the fact that rather than talking about its own qualities it chose to educate women about the health and hygiene benefits associated with it.

Promoted by the agency Leo Burnett, Whisper is the first Indian brand to come out in the open and use the term ‘period’ publically. The tag line “Have a Happy Period” was a bold move taken by the rand in a country where discussion about menstruation is still a taboo and people seldom talks about it in public.

Whisper as a brand has always adopted the method of focusing on the consumer first rather than its own product. The latest promotion in the tradition is the advertisement “Touch the Pickle” running as #Touchthepickle campaign. It aims to break the social myths and taboos associated with menstruating women.

The #Touchthepickle campaign aims to break the social myths and taboos associated with menstruating women. A TVC is also broadcasted on television and youtube promoting the #Touchthepickle campaign.

Sales and Distribution:

The distribution channel plays a very crucial role in the making of a brand. It is very important that which mode of distribution is chosen for promoting and selling the product. Though it is true that more the distribution channels more will be the market coverage but it involves certain risks. The risks could be compromise with the quality of the products because the company gained market coverage at the cost of market control and secondly the company may encounter a growing problem of channel conflict. Now Whisper as a brand is available through retails in almost every city in India but now it has moved its distribution channel to e-commerce websites. There are multiple websites that are selling almost all the Whisper products. One advantage to the consumer while purchasing the product online is that when clubbed together the website may offer a discount of the MRP.

Pricing:

In order to conquer the complete market and cover almost every segment, Whisper has extended its product range to the widest horizon. Just to give a brief about the various options made available by Whisper Sanitary Napkins to its customers follow the table below:

Brand	Day-time Use		Night-time Use
	Amount/pack	Price/pack	Amount/pack	Price/pack
Whisper Ultra Clean L/XL wings	NA	NA	7 pads to 30 pads	Rs.78 to Rs. 300
Whisper Ultra Nights XL/XXXL wings	NA	NA	3 pads to 30 pads	Rs.165 to Rs. 320
Whisper Ultra Soft L/XL wings	7 pads to 15 pads	Rs.80 to Rs.140	NA	NA
Whisper Maxi Fit Regular/XL/XXL wings	7 pads to 15 pads	Rs.75 to Rs.135	NA	NA

Apart from the above product assortment, Whisper also offers combo packs to lure its consumers to make more and more purchase. Two of such combo pack products are:

Whisper Day & Night combo featuring Whisper Ultra Nights  + Whisper Ultra Clean, priced @Rs.150. It ensures that the consumer will have round the clock protects. It projects itself as a complete package.

Whisper Ultra Clean + Whisper Ultra Nights, priced @Rs.135. This is a more economical version of the previous one.

Product:

The product Whisper Sanitary napkins are associated with the biggest taboo in India i.e., 

'menstruation'.

Menstruation is a subject that has culturally been considered a taboo and is entrenched with misconceptions and disregard, with little cognizance of the hazards of inadequate menstrual protection. There have been several surveys across India to find out the sanitary napkins penetration among the Indian citizens and it is a subject of deep concern on how the topic of female heath and hygiene is neglected at all the levels.

Whisper Sanitary napkins, launched in the year 1989 in India is the first brand to help spread the awareness about the basic health and hygiene associated with menstruation. 

The main objective of a sanitary napkin should be to provide high and prompt absorbency during menstruation period and this is the strategy followed by Whisper. It clearly compares itself with other ordinary sanitary napkins and proves its efficiency.

Marketing Mix Elements:

The Whisper product range does not differs across India. It almost sells the same set of products across the country. The only parameter in which it varies is the type of sanitary napkins that it offers for its consumers. Apart from the basic Whisper Regular Sanitary Napkins, it offers a huge assortment of sanitary napkins such as, Whisper Ultra Clean, Whisper Ultra Soft, Whisper Ultra Nights and Whisper Maxi fit. Amongst all these product variations Whisper launched two new products, Whisper Ultra Clean – “Kadam Badhaye Jaa” and New Whisper Ultra Soft – “Gentle on Skin”. With the added benefits of being able to use them for a longer period of time and without any discomfort were the bonus points of these two new products.

PLC and ILC:

Product Life Cycle:

Whisper as a product is high in cost and therefore may not be the first choice among the majority of middle class consumers. Since its introduction in India by all means it is making an effort to target the consumers at the entry level that is when a girl first starts using sanitary napkins. And with the variation in its packaging and product type, Whisper is now able to penetrate into the middle class masses of the Indian society as well and hence is sustaining its growth though the Indian market.

Industry Life Cycle:

Though the concept of sanitary napkins may not sound alien to the majority of urban masses but it is still in its introductory phase if the whole of India is to be considered. Merely 20% of Indian women use sanitary napkins. 70% of the Indian women cannot even afford a sanitary napkin. And since Whisper Sanitary Napkins fall under the premium quality product the chances of it crossing over to the growth phase is a little far in the future.

Buying Decision Making Process:

Competition:

The Indian sanitary napkins business has the following dominant players apart from Whisper Sanitary Napkins:

Though the main competitor of Whisper Sanitary Napkins is Stayfree, there are other new players in the market that can give a competition to Whisper for a short span of time. Amongst all the competitors such as Carefree, Kotex, Sofy, Stayfree, She and Don’t Worry sanitary napkins Kotex is emerging as a great challenge. Lower in cost as compared to Whisper and Stayfree and almost average performance is the prime reason behind its popularity among young consumers.

Interestingly, Kotex is also a Johnson & Johnson product same as Stayfree, which means that these two products if combined will have a higher share than Whisper alone.

Creating and Delivering Customer Value:

Basically customer values are the values perceived by the customers is nothing but the difference between the evaluations made by the customer about the products or services compared to the cost that the customer will incur in order to obtain the same. Whisper Sanitary Napkins as a product may cost a little extra to its customers but the perceived benefits associated with the brand makes it a high value proposition in the minds and hearts of its customers. Whisper Sanitary Napkins creates and delivers the following values for its various sets of customers:

•      Customer:

o   P&G is running a below-the-line campaign called Whisper School Health and Hygiene Education. It is a teen awareness program that teaches the teens about basic hygiene tips and distributes Whisper as a sample.

o   The whole idea behind the campaign is to target customers at the Market Entry Stage.

•      Consumer:

o   Educated women about the product using a social message

o   To spread more and more awareness and build a community around the brand, Whisper has launched a website (www.beinggirls.com) specifically for this brand, which encourages customers to talk about the brand.

•      Channel partner/retailer:

o   First brand to come out of the closet and air a bold campaign “Have a happy period” for the first time in the history of Indian market.