New Delhi: Last month, a Video Harjot Kaur Bumrah, a senior IAS officer from Bihar, scolded a girl for demanding free sanitary napkins, creating a nationwide uproar on social media.
The bureaucrats were conducting a workshop in Bihar when the exchange took place. “Tomorrow, you will reach the age of family planning and would like the government to provide you”Condom‘ very. Why would I be in the habit of taking everything for free from the government? What’s the need for this?” replied Bumrah angrily.
For the uninitiated, when Bumrah said ‘Condom‘, he meant condoms. Like Photocopy and Xerox, Internet Search and Google, Condom: There is a synonym for ‘condom’ in the country.
Nirodh is a government-produced condom brand that India first used as part of its national program of family planning – one of the world’s earliest and largest programs – which began in 1952.
anti-kamaraj
Population growth can no longer be a threat in India as the country’s total birth rate has fallen below the replacement level. Yes we will overtake China’s total population in a few years, but the rising birth rate is no longer a burning issue.
But six decades ago, the picture was very different in the 1960s. India was a poor nation with plenty of mouths to eat, and the population was growing at a staggering rate. In 1964, the population of India was 470 million.
This is when the country introduced its first condom. reports suggest That the government wanted to name it ‘Kamaraj’, but since the then Congress President was Kamaraj, the condom was named ‘Nirodh’.
The government first decided to distribute condoms free of cost in India in 1963. India had imported 400 million packets from America, Japan and Korea. In 1968, the government decided to sell imported condoms under the name ‘Nirodh’. A year later, India established Hindustan Latex Limited in Kerala and started manufacturing condoms in 1969. This was part of the quest to produce high quality condoms for the National Family Planning Program.
Although condoms were not a foreign product, they had been available in Indian markets since the 1940s, courtesy of imports from the UK conglomerate SSL Ltd. But their use was almost negligible. According to Research Before 1973, only four percent of couples had ever used a condom.
Family planning was the need of the hour and condoms were a natural recourse. But for most Indians, ‘rubber’ was unfamiliar territory. The adoption of condoms was a difficult contraceptive method for the market because the onus fell on the man, who may see it as an intrusive method that interferes with sex. National Family Health Survey 2019-21 shows In India, only 1 in 10 men still use condoms, while female sterilization continues to increase.
So, how can you get people to buy what they don’t know what they need? The simple answer was – by making it cheaper.
In the initial stages of the project, a pack of three pieces was sold for 15 paise. More 80 percent below market value. It was not a failed attempt. By March 1972, monthly condom use in India had touched 7 million and detention constituted 92 percent market share,
Read also: Men are ready to use contraceptive methods, but governments, pharma sector are big hurdles
unimaginative, crude marketing
But the detention had fatal packaging and marketing problems that later led to its destruction. No one wanted to bring a sexy condom into their bedroom. For more than 45 years, a detention packet was just a white blend sheet with red text. One Article In india today Describing condoms as ‘ineffective and disappointing’.
and despite limited competition and almost 80 percent Condom use was bought out by people who used condoms at the time – it had not managed to fulfill the original agenda of the family planning programme. A large section of the population, even the target group, was not adopting the contraceptive method.
Later, in the early 1970s, the six largest consumer marketing companies in the country – including familiar names like Lipton Tea, Tata Oil Mills and so on. India Tobacco Company (ITC)- Nirodh was directed to distribute along with its products. This was a smart move on the part of the government, as the responsibility of marketing would not be entirely on the firms.
However, giving cheap condoms along with tea packets or cigarette boxes was not enough. people wanted More – Antiseptic packaging of detention and dur term did not help its cause.
As condom use remained poor, India entered a dark chapter in its population control bid with Sanjay Gandhi’s mass sterilization campaign. In 1976 alone, more than 6.2 million men were coerced germs by the government. Condoms were no longer considered a priority as a form of contraception.
,Condom:’ is a weighty word – when translated literally, it means prevention. From the very beginning, the name had a negative connotation. Murali Neelakantan, former global lawyer of pharma giant Cipla, Having said, “In our cultural context, a married couple is often asked – ‘When is the good news?’ A brand that was advertised to the contrary would not have many buyers.”
Advertising executive Dinesh Khanna, who worked with leading agencies such as Lintas and Enterprise in the 1980s, said marketing by public sector undertakings (PSUs) was generally unimaginative and crude. “Not a lot of thought went into them. This meant that the popular belief was that the products were of low quality. However such a responsibility [Nirodh] Could have been done only by the government,” he said.
The brand needed a major overhaul. Instead of delivering neatly packaged mass-media ads in the 1980s, detention ads Allegedly “Given no relevant information about its use or availability”.
The decision to rebrand it was issued of late 2015, The government wanted to rebrand the plain jane condom as ‘erotic’. A three-member Parliament committee considered putting stickers of couples in love or playing the violin on the packets. But perhaps it was too late, the brand’s image as a poor quality condom of detention could not be undone. In contrast, private companies such as Kamasutra, Durex and Score marketed condoms as an ultra-sexy product in various designs, textures and flavours.
Government sneaky marketing
Detention was never marketed as an erotic product. Even older advertisements did not proceed to use it as a tool of family planning. One ad showed a couple holding hands on the beach and the text read, “The perfect condom to keep the distance between your family. 1.50 for Rs.
In 2012, a photo of a detention deluxe ad on a wall in Varanasi showed a dancing couple informing them that using the product protects them from HIV, unwanted pregnancy and other sexually transmitted diseases.
And that was the problem with the brand, the government always reluctant to associate condoms with ‘pleasure’, which is also the number one criticism about the use of a product in general – that they reduce the fun of sex. . Private condom companies understood this and focused on advertising them as sex-enhancing products, something the government never did.
However, a 2010 advert changed that. The ad, choreographed with playful music, shows a couple teasing each other before entering the house. But the man loses his detention condom before entering. And even though the woman invites him in, he chooses to chase his condom down the stairs. It ends with a senior couple looking at them in approval and voice-over saying: “The one who does not wear a condom, is the Sikandar of Muqaddar“. (He who never gives up his condom is the true winner.)
‘Charming, not sexist’
In 2015, a health ministry official indicated that detention would be given a much-needed facelift. “We hope the new packaging will make a difference. The committee may also recommend a new name for detention.” Told,
Detention then became Detention ASHA, but the change was dropped after several protests by ASHA activists, who refused To distribute them in many districts.
One official said, however, that the rapper was given his promised upgrade with a warning from the ministry – “the images will be flashy, not sexist.” But they soon backed down.
Today, the packaging of the detention, as seen above heroine, shows a couple on the verge of kissing, surrounded by candles. Forty-one percent of the reviewers gave it five stars.
“I think the competitors of this brand are giving negative reviews to make it look bad. Whereas, the truth is this product is as good as most premium brands at a fraction of the price.” Reading One of the reviews.
Read also: Obese women taking birth control pill more likely to form blood clots