Sirona Hygiene bets on print to spark conversations in menstrual hygiene industry

While some people may think print is dying, for Sirona Hygiene it is the right medium to make noise and build conversations around menstruation hygiene. The company is usually digital-heavy in its approach but has incorporated print for the first time as a part of its marketing mix in six years of its existence.

Anika Malik Wadhera

Anika Malik Wadhera, General Manager, Digital Marketing at Sirona Hygiene, told BestMediaInfo, “No matter what others say, print is here for a while. Digital might be strong but we still get newspapers delivered at our houses. A few advertisers have apprehensions because it's a very expensive medium. It is true that digital can help you with exact numbers on returns and brands have limited budgets amid these challenging times. But I feel if everyone had big budgets, everyone would be doing print.”

Though the company hasn’t allocated any specific budget to print, she said the medium will be an ongoing choice every couple of months.

“This is the first time we are betting on this, not sure if we will increase the budget on this, but will definitely make it a part of our marketing strategy along with others,” she added.

Its first full-page ad in HT City Delhi and Deccan Herald.

Another ad highlighting tutorial of its menstrual cups:

Another bold ad for one of its brand PeeBuddy, a portable disposable Female Urination device:

Wadhera said the whole idea behind these creatives has been to catch people’s attention, which she believes they certainly did.

“We are trying to create noise in a category through these bold print creatives. It is a category where people don't talk. So this is the only way for us to take the bold steps, first to make others take the same steps and have conversations. If a father or mother reads the newspaper, they will be familiar with the changes happening in the category,” she said.

Asked if there was any challenge involved in curating these creatives, especially for print, she said one has to take the risk to shake the industry to bring about change.

“We have to be a little risk-taking otherwise. If we doubt ourselves, then obviously we can't exist and cannot make other people change their mind to shake up this industry and the taboos around,” she said.

However, print is just one more media for the company. To get maximum impact, its strategy would be print plus digital.

Since it is digital-heavy and it is the primary channel, within digital itself it does multiple activities for brand awareness and to create product-related content.

She said menstrual hygiene as a category is still very new and nascent in India, and things are not spoken openly. Even women themselves don't talk, she said.

There are a lot of complications, which are not there in most other categories around. There is a need not only to provide the right products but also to create the right conversation around this category.

The company vouches for its innovative solutions and products, which are rare in the market. And education around these products is all the more important for it. It not only uses social media for the content but also works with influencers and newspapers to reach out to all kinds of audiences (including women from puberty till menopause and slightly older audiences). It is also trying to scale up its offline stores.

“Influencer and content marketing are very important for us since we need to educate the customers. In terms of investments on this front, when we get a good response, we will increase our spends,” she said.

For its focus on services, it is exploring subscriptions models, gifts bags and kits, and combos for women who travel often.

It is building a community platform, which will soon be launched. It aims to bring together women so that they can share their problems and other issues around menstruation and hygiene much more openly.

“We want to create a platform where women can come together without any judgement and bias, connect with each other. We plan to launch this very soon,” she said.

For other offline mediums such as TV and OOH, Wadhera said it might explore these mediums later but nothing immediately.

While menstruation awareness, education and health remain a major concern for all the brands, pricing is one of the main problems women face. To make products more affordable for women, Sirona Hygiene is focusing more on the menstrual cups.

It claims to be the leading brand for menstrual cups and has sold six lakh pieces already.

In terms of its overall sales number, it has been growing 100% for the last three years and aims to continue the trend.

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