The Backstory
In 2012, while I was leading shopper marketing for P&G at Leo Burnett, I was sent on an "immersion" to a small town a few hours outside Bangalore. Whisper sanitary pads wanted to enter "India 3", the rural heartland where the brand was struggling to find a foothold. On paper, it was a distribution problem. On the ground, it was a human one.
Meeting Suma
I met a 13-year-old girl named Suma. I visited her home and her school, and her life was the definition of subsistence living. Her father earned a weekly wage as a farm labourer, and a pack of 20 pads – the only size then available – cost nearly a quarter of that week's income.
In India, 23 million women drop out of school every year when they start menstruating.
But the barrier wasn't just financial; it was social. In her community, there was a heavy stigma around menstruation. It was seen as "dirty." To buy pads, Suma would have to walk into a local store and ask a male shopkeeper for a product hidden behind the counter. The shame was too high, so like millions of other girls, she used cloth and stayed home from school during her period.
The Three Simple Pivots
I went back to P&G with a realisation: no ad campaign could fix this. We had to redesign the system around Suma’s reality. I proposed three structural changes:
Sachets, not Packs: We started selling pads in single sachets. This turned a major household investment into a manageable daily expense.
The "Strips" Strategy: We sold them on hanging strips at the front of the store, just like laundry detergent. This allowed girls to grab a sachet without having to start an awkward or embarrassing conversation.
Price Transparency: We printed the price directly on the sachet to stop storekeepers from overcharging for female hygiene products.
The initiative was a massive success, rolling out across India and later the Philippines. But the metrics aren't why I’m proud of it. I’m proud because Suma and millions of girls like her could go to school with their heads held high. As a father, that’s the kind of "creative" I want to be remembered for.