How Nua is using community marketing to change the conversation around menstruation and wellness

• Nua, a direct-to-consumer wellness brand that came into existence in 2017, has already built a community of 4 lakh women.
• Nua started its journey by introducing sanitary pads, followed by a range of innovative products such as Cramp Comfort, Foaming Intimate Wash, and 1mm Everyday Liners. All these products have been launched after having a one-on-one conversation with consumers on Instagram.
• In its last investment round, it raised $7.1 million and added Deepika Padukone as an investor who is now working closely with Nua to ideate and create new wellness solutions.
• Ravi Ramachandran, CEO, and Founder, Nua talks to us about brand's journey so far, how community marketing has helped the brand carve a niche in the market, why there’s a need for long-term engagement at the core of women’s wellness, and a lot more.

Menstruation has historically been a taboo subject in India. The word ‘Period’ is usually uttered in hushed voices and years of social conditioning has built a culture of silence around what is a normal biological process. Women are used to buying sanitary pads off the shelf, covered in black plastic, without having a chance to read the packaging and decide whether that particular pack of pads actually caters to their needs or not. In the advertising and marketing world, menstruation has always meant a cis-gendered woman in white pants conquering the world with blue liquid dripping on her cotton strips.

Therefore, there was an urgent need for a brand that could actively change this narrative, include non-binary people in their campaigns to help minimise dysphoria among AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) people who are not women, challenge existing superstitions around menstruation and encourage menstruators to talk about their sexual wellness openly. Enter Nua, a wellness brand that has managed to carve a niche for itself by simply having an open, candid conversation with menstruators.

Nua engages with its audience one-on-one on Instagram and offers advice on their health issues. It wanted to provide a platform where menstruators feel they are heard without being put in a box and provide solutions in return, specific to their individual needs. Even Nua’s products are born out of insights gathered from its community of over 4 Lakh women. The direct-to-consumer (D2C) business model also allows Nua to connect directly with its customers and maintain control over product development, marketing and distribution.

Ravi Ramachandran, CEO and Founder, Nua told us that the brand was born to give the women's wellness category a new beginning, as the name ‘Nua’ suggests. Its story began with a pad and the brand soon realised there’s a need for safe and effective products that goes beyond just pads. Nua asked the women in its community to tell them what they were looking for and launched Cramp Comfort (self-heating patch), Foaming Intimate Wash, 1mm Everyday Liners and Uplift (period nutrition drink mix).

“We believe that our Sanitary Pads, Cramp Comfort (India’s first unique self-heating patch), Foaming Intimate Wash, 1mm Everyday Liners, and Uplift (period nutrition drink mix) are made by us but are created by our community of over 4 Lakh women who wanted to start a new and improved wellness journey. Our ability to co-create solutions with our community of over 4 lakh women is, what we believe, sets us apart. We are always listening to what our community has to say, especially things that bother them, and this translates into new product development. With menstrual cramps being a big pain point, we created India’s first revolutionary self-heating patch for menstrual cramps known as ‘Cramp Comfort’. Recently, we launched a period nutrition drink mix ‘Uplift’. 100% safe, effective, and made of inclusive ingredients, Uplift is a result of insights gathered from the Nua community and worked upon through extensive research in labs to address the issue of period fatigue. In addition to these period care products, we also offer hygiene products such as Foaming Intimate Wash and Everyday Liners,” said Ramachandran.

When you start following Nua on Instagram, the page sends you a message and Ramachandran told us that 80-90% of the time, customers respond to their questions. In 24 hours, Nua gets even up to 25,000 responses on Instagram. Its team responds to each query personally.

“Social media has played a major role in allowing us to interact with our consumers and understand their purchase patterns and requirements. Our approach has, and will always be, to keep the community at the heart of everything we do. We want women to feel safe, seen, and heard. Today, we have a strong community of over 4 lakh women across our social media channels. We focus on holistic content based on our conversations with them, we have sessions with experts, and also provide a platform for women to engage and learn more about a wide range of wellness aspects - mental, physical, sexual. Moreover, we are always listening to what our community has to say, especially things that bother them, and this also translates into new product development,” Ramachandran told Ad and Media Insider.

On the back of its community, D2C model and unique marketing strategy, Nua aims to grow 4x by the end of this fiscal.

Sharing his larger vision for the brand, Ramachandran said, “Our mission is to build holistic solutions in solving real problems and focus on being customer-first. The market for women’s wellness is massive as several large opportunities remain unsolved. Over the next 12 months, we are poised to grow 4-5x on the back of new products, tech-enabled solutions, and foray into adjacent categories.”