Post by sifatahmed on Dec 27, 2021 6:06:33 GMT
Not many weeks ago, a German product that had won funding on one of those television shows for entrepreneurs went viral globally. The escalation of virality was rapid. First Twitter made it a hot topic in Germany, then it was discovered in the English community and from there it reached the wider world and was criticized in multiple languages. In the WhatsApp conversation in which my circle of friends commented on it, it was concluded that the story seemed almost a parody, as many elements as it had of entrepreneurs who do not understand their market and the cliché of men who do not understand menstruation .
The story starts with Best Database Provider a business idea. Pinky Gloves is a German company with an idea that, to the two men who created it, seemed revolutionary. The inventors created gloves that can be used when changing feminine sanitary products and that are then used to 'hide' the tampons in the bin. The entrepreneurs themselves explained - these explanations were analyzed and parodied on Twitter with great mastery - that they had come up with the idea after living in an apartment with several women and seeing the hygiene products in the trash can. Anyone who has had to use a tampon or pad could have explained to you that a glove is not necessary at all and that the packaging of the products themselves can be used to throw them away.
The controversy came due to the uselessness of the product (although it was a brilliant idea, the size of the glove was not very usable, as pointed out by those who shared their images on social networks) and due to the entire context connected to it.
The entrepreneurs behind the idea had not only invented a non-existent problem and were falling into the cliché of menstruation as something dirty (just one of the elements in which the marketing actions of the companies that make these products are beginning to abandon because their own users have had enough of insisting on that idea), but also had surrounded themselves with a kind of feminine aesthetic with quite empty clichés of empowerment (the content they published on their brand social profiles was also analyzed with total dedication following the trending topic).
Earlier, to make matters worse, the same financing program that had awarded the idea as brilliant had rejected the proposal of a product linked to menstruation - special panties - that two entrepreneurs had presented. It was almost a perfect storm in image debacle.
The chaos that has accompanied Pinky Gloves is interesting from this perspective, but it is also a perfect example to understand another question, that of how menstruation-related products have become a hot niche and one in which it is being produced. a fierce marketing and branding war to capture the market. You could almost say that it matters little what you sell - few variations can be made over the product - as how you sell it. The presentation of things and the identity of the brand are the crucial elements to connect with the audiences or lose them.
It is also a perfect market to understand how the position of women has changed, how the latest waves of feminism have helped to redefine how we talk about certain things and eliminate taboos and how brands have no choice but to keep up.
From discretion to striking color
Since menstruation has as long a history as that of people themselves, the Buy Mobile Database products linked to it also have a long history. During the 20th and 19th centuries, cloths were used, bought in different stores - or made from fabrics - and advertised from time to time in the press. Ads feature offers, highlight that new models are more comfortable, or insist on certain materials. Advertising also serves to present spin-off products, such as miracle tonics like Lydia Pinkham's, a true marketing pioneer .
The mass production of menstrual products begins, however, much earlier than you might think. Brands start after World War I, when women were settling into a new context - the woman who works was increasingly common - and when Kotex took advantage of the health innovation of war. The nurses used one of the cotton materials intended for soldiers as menstrual pads, because they were more efficient.
The manufacturing company, Kimberly-Clark , converted the surplus into the first pads. Kotex is, in fact, still a popular brand in many countries.
In the 1920s, advertising for those early pads insisted on comfort and cleanliness, as well as discretion. The safety of the new product was reinforced by the figure of a nurse, Nurse Kotex, who could be asked questions about its use. In Spain, Kotex did not settle, possibly because the product was expensive and because the history after the 1920s and 1930s was linked to an economic shortage. The arrival of the compresses to Spain is usually situated in the 70s, when Evax and Ausonia burst in . Tampons arrived with Tampax in the 1960s.
During all those decades, hygiene product brands established themselves selling discretion, cleanliness and safety,