Rather than hire an existing influencer at the risk of patronizing or mishandling this sensitive topic, we created our own - Xiao Qi. She is an agony aunt with her own relationships she shares online. To make the brand part of the target audience’s lives, we used Weibo – the most important media for young women. Her posts, under the popular viral meme ‘Stuff girls say/do…’, developed the fan base. Her funny video logs featured common situations encountered by women, particularly during their period. So, for example, we showed how girls could make checking her seat for dampness when she stands up part of normal behaviour. We even had a fun product demonstration and discussions of a wide range of embarrassing social topics like how to make apple juice look like champagne for non-drinkers. Every time, Kotex was front and centre with content designed to be shared virally.

Xiao Qi has developed a huge following online with 150,000 Weibo fans.

The taboo is broken. More than 50,000 girls across China spoke up about periods through re-tweets of Xiao Qi’s 26 tweets.

Her video logs were viewed over 700,000 times – that’s a 493% conversion rate of fans to video clicks.

Kotex has achieved an incredible 8% market share increase from a base of only 2%.