Education isn’t traditionally a big focus for media campaigns, but the issue of period education was so huge and so damaging to millions of India schoolgirls we had no choice.

Our media campaign was driven by content, distributed both to young girls and also to the wider public to enlist their support for change.

The central goal was to change behaviour in families, in communities and also in government.

Twenty-three million.

That’s the number of young girls in India that drop out of school each year because they’ve reached puberty and have started menstruating. One in five girls.

With no access to education or worse, misinformation about puberty and hygienic protection such as sanitary pads, they resort to old-fashioned practices.

Products like cloth and rags which have been lying around the house. Or material like ash, hay and socks filled with sand.

In a country with only 20% sanitary pad penetration, this situation has existed so long that people barely notice.

It was time for change.

Whisper, part of Procter & Gamble, seeks to empower girls. The challenge in India was to deliver pads and education.

Girls dropping out of school when their period starts is a long-standing problem.

It’s particularly prevalent in rural areas, where many walk long distances to attend lessons.

Social taboos have made the situation worse, with parents often not talking to their daughters about periods.

Science education doesn’t cover this basic female once-a-month event.

We identified three areas where we needed to deliver long-term: raising awareness, driving advocacy and on-ground impact.

Our big idea would be to ensure that girls didn’t miss out on school when their periods started.

We would provide them with remote learning opportunities.

We would educate the whole country about periods.

And we would pressure the government to be part of the change.

Central to our message would be the fact that period education was the ‘missing chapter’ in India’s school books.

Our strategy since the pandemic has been to develop a long-term platform that could deliver higher awareness, advocacy and on-ground impact.

#KeepGirlsInSchool has been relentlessly keeping the conversation and action alive. It raises awareness about the issue and encourage citizens to contribute by the simple act of buying Whisper.

First, we tried to influence Government policy by focussing on amassing public support.

Next, we demonstrated how dropping out of school represents a cruel ending to young girls’ dreams.

Finally, our focus was on education.

We gave young girls the opportunity to learn when it became too difficult, too uncomfortable or too embarrassing to attend.

We emphasised the need for period education to help young girls understand what was happening to them.

We also encouraged the Government to change the curriculum.

Launching with an online film that hit 24 million views in just one month, we started our mission to spread period education.

Next, we ensured that no girl got left behind if they had to miss school.

We built “MobileShaala” (mobile classroom) on WhatsApp, providing free access to education modules through smart phones and basic feature, covering English, Science and Maths (as well as menstruation).

We also showcased the missing element of young girls’ education: the facts about periods.

We created the ‘Missing Chapter’ to cover the information that was absent from school books.

Printed on red paper and translated into 28 different languages, and even posted on village notice boards, no one could miss the Missing Chapter.

We made it possible for consumers to make a difference. Our “Buy a pack of Whisper and Whisper will provide period education and pads to 1 girl” was promoted in-store.

The Missing Chapter video was viewed 24 million times in the first month.

“Mobileshaala” reached more than 20m in its first month and generated more than 300m PR impressions.

More than five million girls were educated about periods online and more than four million packs of Whisper were donated.

Whisper pledged to provide period education and pads to 25 million girls over the next three years.

The Minister of Education and Minister of Health and Family Welfare committed to supporting #KeepGirlsinSchool on national TV.

As a result, the Whisper business grew 5% (via offline partners) at a time when the rest of the category was in decline.

The brand achieved its highest ever market share, growing +2pts year on year with online sales growing 2.3X, gaining 7.2pts of share year on year.

Most importantly, we gave millions of girls a better future.