Kotex is a legacy brand that has always firmly believed in creating a world where a girl’s progress is unstoppable.

In India, not only are periods not talked about openly, but the shame and stigma associated with periods prevents young girls from getting access to vital information and menstrual hygiene products.

In a country with 685 million women, poor menstrual health is perhaps the biggest reason why 71% of women don’t participate in sports, limiting their progress. The first step to eliminating this barrier was to create an environment where girls can access the information they need without fear and embarrassment. That’s why Kotex had to bring periods out from behind closed doors and turn them into an open conversation.

Through this campaign Kotex intended to become the beacon of change for young girls in rural India for whom period taboos had become a barrier to participation and progress.

The Idea: Kotex #PeriodOfChange

The Stage: India’s largest rural Olympics with 6000+ athletes and 1 million visitors.

The Participants: 16 young female athletes from rural India

The Act: The world’s first relay race where these athletes passed an open sanitary pad to each other instead of the traditional baton.

The Spectators: Families from rural India, where a traditional mindset regarding periods and period stigma is still strong, including young girls that bear its consequences.

Kotex chose this platform for #PeriodOfChange to defy convention and bring periods out in the open in a striking and unmissable way, in front of an audience that never speaks of periods.

This is how Kotex #PeriodOfChange shocked India’s patriarchal society and showed young girls that periods should not come in the way of them playing sports and in their progress.

Selling a product needs an ad but changing a mindset needs an act.

Kotex #PeriodOfChange was a brave act designed to impact change at two levels:

1. Inspire girls who because of lack awareness of and access to menstrual hygiene are forced to drop out of sports

2. Question society’s patriarchal mindset that believes menstruating girls should be locked indoors and not play sports

Our communication strategy was designed to:

1. Challenge convention: By getting people to question deep seeded conditioning about periods that has become normalised. Including their own behaviour that encourages this culture of shame, by endorsing it with their actions and sometimes with their silence

2. Create ambassadors: Every movement needs a face and we picked 16 young female athletes to become faces of change

3. Trigger a domino effect of change: By boldly leading by example and inspiring people to join our movement for change

Kotex #PeriodOfChange was a bold relay race that triggered change by showing young athletes passing a pad instead of a baton.

The race was held at India’s biggest rural Olympics, the Kila Raipur Sports Festival, on the last day, to garner maximum attendance.

The 16 female athletes from rural India who participated in the race wore specially designed jerseys with the Kotex purpose statement ‘I AM THE CHANGE’, turning them into ambassadors for our movement.

Special kits were assembled for them, with sports equipment, jerseys and Kotex menstrual products.

These brave girls were then felicitated in front of an audience not used to talking about periods openly.

The race was covered by local, national and international news agencies. Global news agency Reuters interviewed these girls to spread their POV to the world.

#PeriodOfChange was documented in a video which was shared widely to empower more and more young girls.

Kotex #PeriodOfChange is now set to travel across 400+ rural schools.

While the media picked up this story and amplified its reach, the real impact came when NGOs were inspired and charged to take the movement forward and include many more young girls. SPARSH (Society for People Action in Rural Service and Health) Gadchiroli, one of India’s most respected NGOs dedicated to the wellbeing of rural and tribal girls has reached out to recreate the Kotex #PeriodOfChange in more than 400 schools across India.