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Consumer insights driving innovation and entrepreneurship As in the majority of markets, the most fundamental source of inspiration for

6. Framing Menstrual Products as Positive

6.2. Framing on the organizational level: Innovation and entrepreneurship

6.2.4. Consumer insights driving innovation and entrepreneurship As in the majority of markets, the most fundamental source of inspiration for

innovation is understanding consumers’ needs and preferences. This might look slightly different in a product field that deals with stigma, however, since function and use are hidden behind closed doors in the privacy of people’s bathrooms and underwear. Another significant aspect to menstrual product development and

innovation is that consumers might not be very engaged in or educated about their own menstrual cycles and might thus have limited ability to identify their menstrual product needs, and much less ways in which such needs might be better satisfied. Therefore, by engaging consumers and their insights about menstruating and using menstrual products as a source for innovation and entrepreneurship, manufacturers might signal that consumers and their experiences are taken seriously, as well as being able to satisfy consumers’ needs in a better way. Both these aspects are likely to increase consumers’ comfort and confidence, thus contributing to destigmatization. Former product developer at SCA (now Essity), Solgun Drevik, argued that,

“When you listen to a customer, they can rarely solve the problem, unfortunately, but if you translate that to a technical solution and turn it into an insight… If I don’t listen to the customer, then I have nothing to gain. Then I can make up anything, but there won’t be anyone who wants it. That’s the biggest mistake that detached inventors do. They have often come up with a solution that no one else is interested in, other than themselves.”

On the other hand, in markets where groundbreaking disruptive innovation occurs, it is rarely consumers who identify ideas about how their needs might be met. Although even in Henry Ford’s case, as the anecdote leads, consumers might have actually identified that they needed faster horses, which he then proceeded to satisfy with cars. Furthermore, as menstrual cycle literacy as well as education and knowledge have been discussed in previous sections, we will discuss how entrepreneurs and other innovators address challenges and needs in the menstrual product field as well as how they aid in their destigmatization.

When it comes to innovation at Essity, they work solely with the development of their existing product portfolio. Strictly speaking, this is not something my other respondents would call innovation, which they define as more radical, including developing new types of products, new types of business models, combining existing products with new business models, or making existing products out of new types of materials. However, because they themselves consider their product development to be innovation, I will categorize it as such. Additionally, they have been known to innovate, in terms of radical product development such as developing the absorbent core that is now widely used by most pad manufacturers, has occurred at Essity (then SCA) by Solgun Drevik.

When developing products, focus needs to be placed on the benefit that you want to deliver to your consumers, not on the products themselves necessarily, since they are only a way to provide a benefit and satisfy a need. The better menstrual products are at satisfying menstruators’ needs, the less issues they will have with their menstruation, which contributes to the destigmatization of both their menstruation and menstrual products. Michael Moscherosch at Johnson &

Johnson stated that,

“I don’t know of any company that makes or develops products that do not include the consumer because that would be a disaster from day one. You need the input of your users, in the cultural context. If you don’t do that, it’s a crapshoot. It might be a success, but it might not. I think it’s absolutely crucial to work with the people who you’re trying to create a benefit for. […] In my mind, you need to understand.

It’s not about the product, the product is just the means to deliver a benefit. You need to understand the needs, and you need to understand the benefits. The product is just a way to deliver a benefit and address that need. You’re never going to learn about the needs and the benefits and sometimes they’re not very obvious, if you don’t talk to your consumers, if you don’t involve them in the development of the product.”

Most of what Essity produce or sell comes from an insight about a consumer need or preference, which they call a consumer insight. They ask a number of questions in order to identify these insights. Sofia Ekstedt, Lead Product Developer in Feminine Care, explained that,

“Everything we do comes from some type of a consumer insight. This implies that we start by collecting information about consumer needs. What do consumers wish for? What needs to they have? What demands do they have? But also, other stakeholders’ requirements like laws, processability, standards, things that we need to relate to. To satisfy those needs, what functions does this product need to have?”

These insights can be picked up through systematic market research, or through trends identified on social media. The latter is often done locally or regionally, where they have more specific communication with the market they work in.

Insights can lead to new innovations, as well, such as in the case of Essity’s black panty liners. The concept of wanting to hide one’s panty liner among other people when changing in a public changing room can be seen as stigmatizing in the sense that even among other women, menstruation, and other reasons for which one

might use a panty liner, needs to be hidden regardless. On the other hand, the concept of black panty liners breaks the notion of everything having to do with women’s genitals and menstruation to be clean, hygienic, white and virgin, which implies that the innovation can be seen as destigmatizing in that sense, simultaneously. Lena Anebreid, Technical Customer Support Manager at Essity, stated that,

“In those cases, we have often picked up through those who work on that market locally or regionally, they usually know what their market looks like and their consumers. So, they know what is demanded and maybe pick up trends, like on social media in Russia there was talk about them wanting this and that and then that gets picked up along the way. One such example is that in some markets they sell a lot of black underwear. So, we were contacted by consumers who asked why we don’t sell any black panty liners.”

In one of their larger market analyses, Essity identified consumers’ stress levels that correspond to different stages of the menstrual cycle in connection to menstrual products. Users experience the highest stress levels when they use and need to get rid of used products, especially if they do not have access to a bin. This triggered product developers to develop a new type of wrapper that enables the user to roll up a used pad in a new pad wrapper, squeeze the ends, which stick together through glue strips and take it with them without risking messiness or odor from spreading. The product launch was connected to a marketing campaign called Live Fearless, since the innovation is thought to provide a better solution and help women feel more comfortable about menstruating, hence destigmatizing the experience of menstruation. This in turn might increase user confidence about menstruating and menstrual product use, which can aid in destigmatizing the matters. Sofia Ekstedt stated that,

“A number of years ago, we started looking at women who wanted to be out and about; they want to be able to get rid of their menstrual products. You can say that when you buy the product, there is a low level of stress, then you have them at home – not very stressful, but then the use and getting rid of-process is very stressful for the woman. How could we then reduce the stress when getting rid of the product? And then, we looked at it and saw that lots of women wrap their product in some way, in toilet paper, in the old wrapper… You wrap it because you don’t want it to show but you often need to carry it with you. So, what we did then was that we created this resealable wrapper so you can wrap your product,

stick it in your pocket, stick it in your bag, it won’t create a mess, it will stick, you can keep going, without worrying that it might get messy and smell. So that became an innovation that was delivered together with Live Fearless.”

This innovation was not always appreciated, for instance, in Sweden. Apparently, consumers said that it did not work. The reason it did not work was because consumers in Sweden did not care enough, or rather were not stressed enough, or affected enough by the stigma, about being able to dispose of the products in a mess- and odor-free way. This is likely to do with the notion that they often have access to a trash can or bag. In places where such access was limited, the innovation was more well-received. Sofia Ekstedt at Essity stated that,

“There are a lot of Swedes who say that this solution does not work – well, that’s because you don’t care – you crumple it up and that’s not how it works, because you don’t have that problem in Sweden, while in other parts we saw that this was a huge problem among school girls who didn’t want to go to school because they didn’t have any place to get rid of the products. So, that triggers ‘we have to do something for these girls,’ all those women who have that stress, then you have to do something and that creates innovation insights.”

As indicated, it is important to analyze all steps in the process of using the products, and the packaging matter in terms of disposing used products has been a topic of discussion for a long time at Essity. This is indicated by the notion that both current product developers and former developers have struggled with reducing consumers’ stress about potential smell or visibility of their used products to others in public spaces. Solgun Drevik argued that,

“We worked a lot with packaging because an important insight was that no one wants to come to the toilet. I’m not talking about one’s own toilet, but someone else’s or something, and you can see or smell menstrual products. You don’t want to smell, and you don’t want to see. So, we worked really hard at how to make that as good as possible.”

This issue can be seen as buying into the stigma of menstruation needing to be kept out of sight, and the more companies develop products that are silent and unnoticeable, the stigma is reinforced. On the other hand, with the levels of stigma that are experienced in different cultures, today, it can be argued that we are all still far from accepting aspects such as odorous used menstrual products,

which is likely one of the most stigmatized aspects of menstruation. Further, handling one’s own menstruation is one thing, but dealing with others’

menstruation is different and can be compared to the Swedish saying, ‘my children and other people’s brats,’ which implies that people are much more forgiving when it comes to their own issues, than they are with others.’ Drevik stated that,

“You have a life cycle of a product that you need to take care of and that wasn’t something a lot of people had thought about. Most people had identified that it’s so damn disgusting to go to the toilet after someone that’s menstruating because then it’s one step away from handling your own menstruation, and all of a sudden you have to deal with someone else’s menstruation and that’s when it gets really disgusting and you come back to ‘my kids and others’ brats’ and it’s the same principle that goes through people all the time.”

While many consumers are likely to think that existing products on the market satisfy their needs, especially as they are continuously improved by large companies such as Essity, others identify gaps in the market that they would like to see new products fill. There are few products that meet the needs of women in rural areas of developing countries that have limited access to environmentally friendly disposal. Louise Berg wants to rectify this by developing a new kind of product that can be decomposed safely in the environment. This has not been done earlier, and she meets much resistance but instead of discouraging her, she finds it enticing. Her continued argument is that products need to be developed to meet the real needs implied by the lives that women live today. Berg stated that,

“I want to develop a menstrual product that satisfies the requirements of the lives people lead, and because people said it wouldn’t work.”

Gynecologist Christina Lloyd agrees with Berg’s discussion about the lack of good menstrual products that suit the lifestyles and budgets of those in developing countries and that this matter should be raised not only among manufacturers but that it would also be interesting in terms of research. She stated that,

“Today, the question of quality of life is huge. You could say that research on willingness to pay could be really interesting to look at with regard to menstrual products.”

Furthermore, new kinds of business models with sustainability orientations are continuously arising. One idea is a holistic concept that includes the whole menstrual cycle throughout a person’s entire life. Daniella Peri compares her concept to an online medical service but for menstrual cycle needs where lay knowledge including household remedies and indigenous practices is incorporated so as to pay respect to old traditional expertise developed over centuries as well as a reaction to the neglect of women’s needs and issues in Western medicine. She described it as,

“From menarche to post-menopause, with an offer including products such as thrush medicine, natural vitamins, smaller pads for those who bleed less or who are smaller people, pregnancy pads, UTI-tests, herpes medication, access to OBGYNs as well as a platform for “tailoring one’s wellbeing.”

To summarize, in order to innovate products that are of the greatest benefit to consumers, it is important to involve users in the development process. This might seem like an obvious point, but there are still many menstruators around the world that belong to segments that are under-served by the current menstrual product supply. Furthermore, there are certain potential tensions involved in listening to consumer needs, such as when consumers express a want or ‘need’ for products that reinforce the stigma rather than destigmatize, such as in the case with black panty liners. The stronger the stigma, the more such tensions are likely to arise when working toward destigmatization, but companies seem to be dealing with them by focusing on destigmatizing communication about products to affect public opinion in the long run.