Task:

To drive relevance for Whisper by reasserting a new “contemporary conversation” about periods with young urban women, in a socially-interesting, fame-generating way.

Insight:

Research pointed to deep-rooted period-taboos still alive in the 21st century; taboos that feed a culture of shame leading to young women growing up with a disgraceful sense of self. Taboos like not entering the kitchen, and even not touching pickles, a daily Indian meal condiment, for fear they would rot with their touch.

Idea:

‘Touch the Pickle’ – a social-movement by Whisper that bravely challenged the culture of shame propagated through period taboos.

The campaign got the attention of and engaged with young urban women:

• The campaign achieved 73% unaided recall.

• It generated free-media worth USD 6.1million.

• Over 2.9million women participated and pledged to ‘Touch the Pickle’.

• Over 1.9million views on YouTube for the ‘Touch the Pickle’ video.

• Facebook engagement rate was 959 Index.

• Whisper’s Share of Voice grew from 21.0% TO 91.2%.

We needed to reach out to young-urban-women and spark a national conversation and debate about period-taboos. So the movement started with a TV-spot that asked young women to boldly break period-taboos by touching the pickle. This provocative message got the nation’s attention. Bollywood-celebrities and real-life women achievers stepped forward to spread the message. CNN-IBN, a leading news-channel hosted a show called #LetsTalkPeriod. Radio-Jockeys across major cities conducted live debates and Q&A sessions. Aditi Gupta, founder Menstrupedia, took to the TedTalks stage. Comedians, and women from different walks of life created compelling-content to inspire other women and fuel conversations and debate.

Young urban women who are the target audience for Whisper are confidently stepping forward in everyday life, but for most, the culture of shame propagated by archaic period taboos stop them from truly being free.

Whisper decided to challenge this culture of shame and so we launched ‘Touch the Pickle’.

Our approach to media planning was to choose channels that reach out to young urban women and spark a national conversation and debate about period taboos.