Monalisa Sanitary Napkin’s latest campaign on women resilience
By Farhat Chowdhury (Zishan)
Women hygiene products have long been subject to social dilemma. Marketers have always pondered upon the perfect communication method in portraying the products in front of their target audience; in a way that can be relatable and can provoke thoughts.
Sanitary napkins have long been used as a token of portraying women’s sense of helplessness and then goes onto showing how they can rejuvenate via using the product. Monalisa sanitary napkins, being a key player in the market that is dominant by a few colossal brands, have recently taken a stand in a manner unlike any other. The brand has decided to adopt a completely different communication approach by portraying sanitary napkins as a token of women’s resilience and indomitable spirit. Their recent campaign “A Story of Inspiration” clearly portrays how a woman rises up to an insurmountable challenge and decides to thrive against all odds.
The DMC (Digital Marketing Campaign) depicts the story of Jesmin Akhter, a woman who lives her life in dreadful misery. Her husband leaves her and thus she falls into a state of complete misery with her child. Weighing all her thoughts of desperation, she spends sleepless nights until she decides to take a leap of faith. She resolves to join a profession that has long been chosen by males. Jesmin Akhter decides to become a rickshaw puller. From the shabby slums of Chittagong, she goes to a rickshaw garage and convinces the supervisor with all her determination to allow her to rent a rickshaw.
And that is just the beginning of her hardship. From people gawking at her, to catcalls to people staring at her in sheer disbelief, she has to go through every social obstacle in order to properly earn her living. People jeer at her, mock her and hesitantly get into her rickshaw. And on the contrary, there are even a few people who support her throughout her journey.
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Despite all her obstacles, she stands up to the challenge and finally becomes successful in her profession. Through this DMC, Monalisa Sanitary Napkin carefully unified itself with women who struggle in their everyday lives and overcome obstacles with sheer determination and also to motivate those women who still have the potentials to uphold their inner spirits but yet to come out of their cocoon.
This DMC of the campaign has garnered numerous views both in Facebook and Youtube, with people yearning for similar contents from the brand. With the core objective being to create social awareness in every demographic stratum, the campaign can be evaluated to be effectively executed.
One key platform that has helped elevate Monalisa’s brand awareness is Monalisa Women’s Club. It has an engaging Facebook page with regular hygiene-related tips. The page also plays a vital role in answering many of the product-related queries from the target audience. The page has an offline presence as well – thus catering to the maximum number of audience possible. The club has undertaken several school health awareness campaigns related to similar issues where there has been free samplings and doctor consultations. The organizers are planning to take these events a notch farther in the years to come, with female entrepreneurs and social activists visiting the schools and interacting with the young girls – thus sowing seeds of motivation into the young souls.
Monalisa has utilized print media as well in order to increase the reach of their brand. On every Wednesday, it releases a separate article full of content named “Shahoshi Narir Golpo” on a national daily featuring inspirational stories of women with different professions who have changed their fate by taking bold courageous steps and succeeded.
The product caters from lower-middle to middle-upper demographic classes and has a competitive pricing strategy. And the campaign effectively communicates with the specified target group. With campaigns like “A Story of Inspiration” and the offline presence of Monalisa Women’s Club, the brand aspires to go deeper further from semi-urban territories to rural areas; thus, completely eradicating women’s reliance on traditional, unsafe menstruation-related practices.
From a competitive standpoint, the brand Monalisa varies from others because they portray the struggles and sacrifices of women and relate them to their product. While other brands in the similar product category feature confident women getting easy relief by using their products, Monalisa portrays the complete opposite – women clenching their teeth and fighting hard to thrive in life; regardless of the setbacks. This particular positioning has given them a certain edge.
In a country where even urban women feel hesitant to go into pharmacies and directly ask for sanitary napkins till this day, Monalisa has given them a reason to gather courage. And the core value has been carefully embedded in both the brand as well as its carefully orchestrated campaigns – to acknowledge one’s own struggle and rise above all difficulty. Simply because women can.
