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THE REVOLUTION OF HYGIENIC TOWELS FOR PERUVIAN WOMEN.
At the time I worked at Procter & Gamble, there were two brands of sanitary napkins in the market. Both were made of cotton flakes that were uncomfortable and not they absorbed. Also, the towel packages were expensive, so only the upper class could buy them. Middle / lower class girls only used towels on the weekends, when they were going out. The other days they wore fabrics, they cut them, folded them, and then washed them. Also, level girls low socioeconomic status, especially in rural areas, had beliefs and myths, for example, that the fabrics had to be washed at night because if someone saw their blood, it was bad luck.
I learned this by talking directly to girls and their moms of all socioeconomic levels from all over Lima. It was a fascinating experience that trained me to know the consumer thoroughly. Yes We think that being a woman is difficult now, imagine what it was like in those times and the previous ones where menstruation was a taboo subject. To talk to them about this, we had to wait for the husband to leave the house and children are in school. But it’s through this face-to-face trust that I learned the difficulties that these girls and women all dealt with months. They did not leave their home for three days a month, since they had to change fabrics constantly. I was wondering, how are they going to do? How they go to work? It cannot be that this has them in their homes for life.
So, we decided to bring top technology to Peru of the moment as was ‘Malla Sec’. This was a high performance towel in absorption, with a superior fabric that gave you a feeling of being dry. A excellent choice as a product, however, the bag of 10 units involved a high outlay of money, so we analyzed other alternatives. This is how a creative idea came up to sell the towels per unit. The idea and the reception of it among the consumers. The challenge was to convince the corporation that in Peru needed a special adaptation and then the challenge was how did we get a adequate local packaging on the sanitary side, since these packages had to be very well exhibited and in contact with the environment.
It was hard to imagine how a product that had to be in a highly hygienic environment could sold individually. It was like selling loose cigarettes but speaking of sanitary napkins. Many thought we were crazy but we were We could do. We did the same for Peru and India, as a pilot market for Procter.
This allowed us to have a presentation that would allow product testing for this target group, in addition to allowing recurring purchases at all socioeconomic levels, including the most so they could use cloth while at home and buy the towels individually exclusively for going out.
And with this experience I discovered my passion, working in business projects that are innovative and that change lives for best.
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