Menstrual health & stigma free communication as principal narrative for advertising menstrual cups: Impact on potential consumers’ willingness to use and quality perception

Abstract

Social stigma around menstruation has created negative narratives that have shaped how women perceived their own menstrual cycle and menstruation. Moreover, these negative narratives construct the social perception about menstruating women and expectations about their decisions to manage their menstrual cycle and reproductive health. Those decisions include menstrual practices, which are related with product choosing. Stigma, and selfobjectification in women, have created a difficult environment where women are non-wellinformed about their own menstruation, an environment that is also difficult for the industry to distribute and communicate about products for menstrual care, because products also need to fulfill social expectations about menstrual practices. Within this environment it is difficult that products solutions, such as the menstrual cup, finds its way within the market distribution, despite its benefits and high quality. Negative narratives have been promoted by the menstrual care industry that has passed the idea that menstruation is a problem that needs to be managed with secrecy and disposable products. In this dissertation, a new narrative with a health approach about menstrual health is studied, with the objective to understand its impact on menstrual care products, specifically the menstrual cup, a product that has demonstrated good results in menstrual care management due its durability, materials, and cheap price. The purpose of this dissertation is to test an online video (ad) amongst women consumers of menstrual care products and compare with a control group exposed to an online video centered in a more mainstream concept: Comfort. The objective is to confirm the impact of the two narratives towards willingness to use and quality perception of the menstrual cup. Conclusions reported that a narrative centered in menstrual health improve scores on willingness to use and quality perception of menstrual cups, demonstrating new possible narratives for menstrual care industry advertising communication and positive impacts on women’s health.