Menstrual hygiene advertising in India has undergone a visible shift over the last few years. A category once dominated by euphemisms, blue liquid demonstrations and outdated storytelling is slowly moving towards more direct communication around periods, discomfort and menstrual health.
This shift is also being driven by a new wave of digital-first brands attempting to position menstrual hygiene as a broader cultural and health conversation rather than just a product category. One such brand is Pee Safe, which has tried to build its communication around breaking taboos, increasing awareness and normalising conversations around women’s hygiene and health. According to Rithish Kumar, Co-founder, Pee Safe, the brand consciously chose cause-led storytelling over traditional advertising-led communication.
“As a brand, we have always relied more on cause-led branding than traditional forms of marketing. When you are solving something as impactful and personal as human hygiene, associating with a larger social cause becomes extremely important,” he says.
That philosophy has increasingly shaped how Pee Safe approaches both campaigns and partnerships. Most recently, the brand onboarded cricketer Smriti Mandhana as the ambassador for its Comfort Range, positioning the association around openness, comfort and participation in sports.
Rather than treating the partnership like a conventional celebrity endorsement, the brand used it to further conversations around how women experience periods in everyday life, including while playing sports, travelling or working. Its recent #BeInYourComfortZone campaign specifically attempted to challenge the idea that discomfort during periods should simply be tolerated. The campaign film focused on the idea that while periods are natural, struggling through them should not be normalised.
Kumar says the decision to work with Mandhana was rooted in both aspiration and cultural relevance. “In today’s context, a sportsperson like Smriti is incredibly aspirational. She is inspiring millions of girls and women across India — not just to play sports, but to pursue anything they truly love,” he says.
He adds that the partnership was designed to go beyond a standard celebrity endorsement. The campaign rollout integrated Mandhana across packaging, outdoor media, digital storytelling and Menstrual Hygiene Day initiatives, reflecting how the brand increasingly sees communication as an ongoing conversation rather than isolated campaigns.
The evolving communication
That shift also mirrors a broader evolution happening across menstrual hygiene advertising itself. For years, menstrual hygiene advertising in India followed a predictable formula of white clothes, carefree dancing, coded language and blue liquid demonstrations that avoided showing the realities of periods altogether. Digital-first hygiene brands are now attempting to change that narrative.
Take, for example, Pee Safe’s ‘It’s Just Periods’ ad, which showed a frustrated girl who was fed up with her family acting as if it were the old ages whenever she spoke about her periods. The ad spoke about how social stigmas have overshadowed menstruation, silencing voices and perpetuating myths.
Over the last few years, Pee Safe’s campaigns have increasingly focused on conversations rather than just product education. Last year, the brand launched the #ZeroPeriod campaign around Menstrual Hygiene Day. The campaign followed the story of a young footballer experiencing her first period during a match and was accompanied by on-ground menstrual education drives across schools and underserved communities.
The company has also experimented with longer-form conversational formats. Its podcast property, ‘Pee Room Conversations’, focused on discussions around women’s hygiene, relationships, body image and health, topics that have traditionally remained outside mainstream advertising conversations.
This shift reflects a broader change happening across the category itself. Menstrual hygiene brands today are increasingly behaving like education and community platforms instead of simply product marketers.
Talking about the brand’s overall communication approach, Kumar says the brand has relied more on cause-led branding than traditional forms of marketing. He adds, “With Smriti coming on board, we are now elevating that conversation further by integrating the theme of sports into our storytelling. In many ways, we are transitioning from purely cause branding to a mix of cause and culture-led marketing.”
Social media effect
A large part of that shift has been enabled by social media. Unlike television advertising, digital platforms have given brands the ability to speak directly, educationally and in greater detail about periods, PMOS (previously known as PCOS/D), reproductive health and hygiene. For brands in this category, social media is no longer just a distribution channel. It is where discovery, education and conversation are all happening simultaneously.
“A large percentage of consumers discover us through social media. In fact, when you are trying to talk about subjects that have historically not been spoken about openly, social media becomes one of the most effective platforms available,” Kumar says.
Pee Safe currently operates with an 80:20 split between digital and offline media, focusing heavily on Instagram, YouTube, Meta and Google for top-funnel awareness.
The brand has also started experimenting with contextual and programmatic advertising around women’s health conversations. “We are trying to collaborate with apps and platforms that already engage with subjects relevant to women’s health and hygiene so that our messaging appears in more meaningful contexts,” Kumar says.
“Especially after Smriti came on board, our communication has become far more targeted and contextual. Earlier, our approach was much more generic,” he candidly adds.
The category is now expanding beyond periods
The menstrual hygiene sector is currently undergoing a significant transformation, broadening its scope. Discussions regarding PMOS, reproductive wellness, hormonal health, and menopause are increasingly coming to the forefront of social media, wellness brands, and healthcare platforms.
Kumar says Pee Safe also sees its future moving beyond menstrual hygiene alone. “Our long-term vision is to build a larger platform around women’s health and hygiene. Today, we are primarily talking about feminine and menstrual hygiene, but there is so much more that needs attention,” he says. He adds that the brand eventually wants to expand conversations across every stage of a woman’s life, ‘from puberty to menopause and beyond’.
According to Kumar, this shift is also being driven by larger social changes. “There are a lot more women joining the workforce today. They have financial independence and are making decisions for themselves in ways that were not as common earlier,” he says.
The stigma around periods has not disappeared entirely. But compared to a decade ago, when menstruation was treated almost entirely as something to conceal, the conversation today is far more visible, public and gradually becoming more honest.
