MUMBAI:  India still lags behind when it comes to holding conversations about menstrual periods. According to Unicef, nearly 71 per cent of adolescent girls have no idea about periods even today. In most homes, mothers usually are the primary source of information for young girls, while fathers somehow are never a part of this crucial conversation with their daughters.

This Daughters’ Day sanitary napkin brand Stayfree set out to bridge this gap between fathers and daughters. The brand has launched a new campaign that urges fathers to be involved in period conversations with their daughters.

The hygiene brand called several father-daughter duos for auditions for a Daughters' Day ad. However, none of them knew that the ad was for Stayfree. When the script was handed out to them, they fumbled, stammered, and stuttered their way through the subject of periods. But with each take, the conversations got easier – until at some point they didn’t need the script at all. It stopped being an audition and became a conversation between the parent and child instead.

"My mom spoke to me about my periods. That’s how it has been for generations. As part of Stayfree's agenda to normalise periods, we realised that as long as just moms were speaking about the subject, we'd never achieve what we set out to do,” said DDB Mudra creative head - West, Pallavi Chakravarti. “But making dads have "the talk" with their daughters is easier said than done. So, we didn't convince them. We just put them in a situation where they'd have to get over their apprehensions and get on with being a parent.”

The campaign builds on Stayfree’s award-winning campaign from 2020 - ‘It’s just a Period’, and brings to light the discomfort fathers feel in having a conversation on menstrual periods with their daughters.

Johnson & Johnson Consumer Division, India vice president Marketing, Manoj Gadgil said, “Stayfree has always stood up for enabling a healthy relationship between a girl and her periods – be it through our products or thought-provoking campaigns. Normalising period conversations is core to what Stayfree stands for and through our new Daughter’s Day Campaign we encourage parents and fathers, in particular, to let go of the awkwardness and have a conversation with their daughters on menstrual periods, one frank chat at a time.”