Fems, Sri Lanka’s leading and progressive feminine hygiene brand, clinched an unparalleled victory, becoming the first feminine hygiene brand in Sri Lanka to win the prestigious Gold award for Product Brand of the Year at the SLIM Brand Excellence Awards 2024. The brand secured a total of three major awards, maintaining its winning streak since 2023.
Fems captured the coveted Product Brand of the Year Gold award competing against established brands across all consumer categories. Fems also won Silver awards for Innovative Brand of the Year and CSR Brand of the Year.
Shiyan Jayaweera, Director Marketing, Hemas Consumer Brands, said, “These prestigious awards validate Fems’ unwavering commitment to empowering women and breaking barriers in an often-overlooked category. As a leading feminine hygiene brand, Fems will continue to pioneer conversations around the category to meet our consumer’s evolving needs by delivering innovation and increased social awareness to create a meaningful impact in their lives.”
Fems won the Gold award for Product Brand of the Year by demonstrating an impressive performance in a challenging market. Despite operating in a category often viewed as non-essential, the brand achieved noteworthy growth across all key metrics: acquiring both volume and value share while driving category penetration, delivering exponential year-on-year revenue growth, while consistently increasing market share, brand equity, and profitability. These achievements align with Fems’ vision to be Sri Lanka’s most loved feminine hygiene brand by enabling women’s independence through understanding and addressing their evolving needs.
The brand’s commitment to innovation and social responsibility were recognized with Silver awards for both Innovative Brand of the Year and CSR Brand of the Year. Understanding that mere product innovation would not serve the evolving needs of Sri Lankan women, Fems pioneered a comprehensive approach to solving consumer challenges. Fems’ innovative spirit extended beyond traditional boundaries.
The brand engineered public sanitary napkin dispensers to improve accessibility and normalize the category, while being the first to break category taboos by showing menstrual blood in red in advertisements and celebrating meaningful moments like a girl’s first period and the unspoken bond with her father. These purpose-driven innovations were complemented by product advancements including Fit to Body technology and leak control features, demonstrating Fems’ holistic approach to meeting consumer needs while driving positive social change.
It led to groundbreaking initiatives such as the HER Foundation – built on three pillars: Help in addressing period poverty, Empower through normalizing menstruation conversations, and Rise by celebrating women who overcome challenges. Through educational initiatives, Fems reached over 300,000 women across schools, factories, plantations, and prisons, while the trilingual chatbot, Fio, Sri Lanka’s first period related Whatsapp chatbot, facilitated over 30,000 health-related conversations, making menstrual health information accessible to all Sri Lankan women.
Fems continues to break new ground in female health education and support through innovative digital solutions. The brand’s flagship initiative, Fio, stands as Sri Lanka’s first trilingual period tracker app, offering comprehensive features completely free of charge in English, Sinhala, and Tamil. Beyond basic tracking capabilities, Fio provides users with direct access to medical professionals for female health consultations, enriching educational content through its insights section, and a vibrant community platform where women can connect and share experiences.
The brand has also adopted a fresh approach to normalizing menstruation conversations by incorporating humour into its communication strategy. Through strategic partnerships with social media influencers, Fems is successfully breaking down long-standing taboos around menstruation, reaching broader audiences with relatable and engaging content that makes period conversations more approachable and natural.
The SLIM Brand Excellence Awards 2024, themed ‘Excellence in Human Intelligence’, provided a platform for companies to showcase achievements, enhancing their contributions to the marketing profession and the national economy.
As Fems continues the journey of growth and purpose, the historic triple victory at the SLIM Brand Excellence Awards 2024 sets a transformative chapter for the brand and for Sri Lanka’s feminine hygiene category.
