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Menstruation is a part of the female reproductive cycle that begins with adolescence. Menstruation is a natural change; it relates to several malpractices and misconceptions that may contribute to adverse health outcomes.

The authors have searched relevant papers using Google Scholar and PubMed to write this mini review.

During menstruation, poor hygiene maintenance can cause serious illness, which includes the urinary tract and reproductive tract infection. Menstruation management is a hygienic system, and it is essential for females because poor hygiene maintenance during menstruation can cause some infections and numerous sexually transmitted diseases. There are a few nanotechnology-based products that have come into the market to offer some relief to females during their periods.

This mini review will help researchers to design innovative female hygiene products that can relieve the discomfort caused to women during their reproductive age.

The case study offers a unique teaching tool to the instructor and learners. Very few cases offer a product and segmentation dilemma in a single problem. The discussion would enable learners to:

– conduct a situational analysis by using frameworks such as the 5C and SWOT;

– understand different kinds of segmentation options that a firm can consider;

– understand the nuances of making a viable and actionable new product launch decision;

– analyze the pros and cons of a segmentation decision and comprehend how the decision will impact the firm’s marketing and/or business strategy.

Sirona Hygiene Private Limited was a young startup founded in 2015 by Deep Bajaj. The firm had three brands under its umbrella, namely, female hygiene (Peebuddy), menstrual hygiene (Sirona) and protection and wellness (BodyGuard). Though the firm was recognized for feminine hygiene products, the pandemic boosted the sale of BodyGuard face masks and hand sanitizers.

The sanitizer market was growing, and protection and sanitization products were now part of every consumer’s daily ritual. As BodyGuard now had some brand recognition, Sirona could consider expanding the sanitizer line with a natural new product formulation. However, the expansion decision could have short- and long-term impacts on BodyGuard and Sirona Hygiene. The decision could be two-pronged, involving a product line expansion and revisiting the BodyGuard segmentation strategy. Currently, the BodyGuard range was focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) users, but volumes were higher in business-to-business (B2B). Second, BodyGuard was a forced fit brand amongst the Sirona family of feminine products

Thus, as Sirona considered a new product opportunity, assessing the viability of a possible move to the B2B segment may be prudent. However, the BodyGuard range also had mosquito repellents and baby products, which were essentially a B2C option, so was it more practical to stay as a B2C brand? Furthermore, if BodyGuard stayed a B2C brand, should it consider a demographic segmentation, or was a psychographic approach more beneficial in a cluttered commoditized space such as sanitizers? Which approach would build a consumer–brand connection? Or should the brand straddle both segments? Finally, the firm would also need to assess the BodyGuard segmentation strategy from the overarching Sirona business strategy.

The case can be used for a foundation course in Marketing and/or an advanced elective on Product Management or Marketing Strategy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

Suppliers and marketers have started planning toward postpandemic scenarios where logistics and retail will happen in a new way with the help of technological advances. This shift means new challenges for manufacturers, suppliers and retailers, and there is a need for strategic sourcing decisions for a robust supply chain system, logistics and on-time delivery system, as consumers have shown a positive change in online buying behavior. Furthermore, with digital transformation, customers are expected to not return to traditional buying. Hence, it becomes essential to identify the factors acting as enablers of online purchase behavior for sustainable digital business. This study aims to analyze the positive shifts in online purchasing by consumers, identify and model the enablers of positive transformations in online purchasing by consumers.

The interpretative structural modeling (ISM) technique is used to draw the interrelationships among the variables and their impact on online buying. A context-oriented relationship among the factors has been set up through the expert opinion technique. A total of 40 specialists have been approached for this. ISM with Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment (MICMAC) analysis was used to prioritize these drivers, identify the most critical factors and establish a driver-dependence relationship among these drivers.

Several significant categories of enablers like health, trust, convenience, work from home, referral buying, panic purchase and overstocking possess a strong influence on the shift to online due to the pandemic. The results will help the policymakers, suppliers, retailers, managers and practitioners with insights to plan, prepare for challenges and make decisions toward preparation and shifting to the emergent digital world. In addition, the study provides academicians scope for further research in the related area.

Consumer behavior significantly impacts retail and supply chain business, as it is an interface with the customer and links between a manufacturer and a customer. This study provides an insight into the shift in purchase behavior which can help suppliers in this transition phase to be better prepared for tomorrow to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

This study assists practitioners and researchers in understanding the interrelationships among the factors using ISM-MICMAC analysis in a realistic way rather than daydreaming with overambitious goals.

This study analyses consumers’ perception of meat quality and safety in Afghanistan at the pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest stages.

Qualitative data were collected through seven focus group discussions with 52 participants in Kabul and Bamyan, Afghanistan, between September and December 2020. A qualitative content analysis was undertaken using the Total Food Quality Model and the MAXQDA software.

At the pre-harvest stage, both sedentary and nomadic ruminants’ meat was perceived as high in quality and safety, with lower food safety hazards, unlike urban-raised ruminants’ meat. At the harvest stage, supermarket meat was perceived as better in hygiene, but not in freshness. Additionally, there were doubts about the Halal-slaughtering of this meat. Conversely, butchery meat was perceived as fresh, natural and trustworthy, but unhygienic. At the post-harvest stage, the most important quality attributes before purchase were color, freshness, place-of-origin, safety and Halal-slaughtering, and after purchase were taste and tenderness. Lack of consumer trust was also noticed for the formal institution, i.e. supermarket meat.

This study provides valuable new results from Afghanistan that could be transferred to other Islamic-developing countries given the similarities in their meat industry, i.e. availability of both formal and informal institutions, and the sensitivity of Muslim consumers to Halal-slaughtering. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of the study design demands further research, employing, e.g. a quantitative approach. Future studies conducted in other countries with similar context could validate the results of this paper.

Knowledge on consumer behavior in Afghanistan is scarce. The present study is one among a few that provides empirical evidence on Afghan consumers. Additionally, it is the first study to compare consumers’ perceptions of traditional butchery meat and supermarket meat.

This study proposes marketing strategies for global fast-moving consumer good (FMCG) brands to survive and thrive in the turbulent economic environment created by COVID-19. The authors investigate the indirect effects of consumer ethnocentrism (CET) and consumer confidence (CC) on customer equity drivers (CEDs)’ effectiveness in influencing repurchase intention (RI) for global FMCG brands.

This study uses the mall-intercept technique. Respondents were randomly approached at popular retail and shopping destinations in Athens, Greece, and 228 customer participants completed the survey.

CET and CC weaken the positive relationship between certain CEDs and RI of FMCG brands. Particularly, the effects of relationship equity (RE) and value equity (VE) on strengthening repeated purchases are higher for low-confidence or low-ethnocentric consumers. Thus, marketing strategies for enhancing value and creating stronger consumer–brand relationships are more effective in boosting repeated purchases during economic turbulence.

Practitioners and academicians can use the insights obtained from this study to determine how to allocate resources and adopt the most effective marketing strategies in local environments based on consumer preference for domestic or global products and consumer morale and expectations for future financial status.

This research unveils the mechanism behind the moderating effects of CET and CC on the effectiveness of CEDs in global FMCG settings using social identity and system justification theory. Turbulence in international and local markets due to the pandemic has revealed that marketing function needs to redesign strategies and coordinate practices to boost repeat purchases.

The aim of the present work is to develop a method to find the preventive measures for COVID-19 and their priorities. These preventive measures are prioritized according to the expert opinion.

An integrated method using the Kano model and Fuzzy-AHP is used to achieve the study objectives. First, the preventive measures are identified according to the expert. Next, the Kano model is used to determine the different Kano categories for remedial activities that are identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other medical authorities. Finally, Fuzzy-AHP is applied to determine the weights of these activities and assign the priorities according to their impact.

It is observed that the activity Avoid Travelling is the most important classification or category with the highest weight as compared to the other activities and sub-activities. It is also noticed that the category packed food items get the lowest weight and is the least important classification or category. In this work, two different approaches, designed for different purposes, provide similar results and verify each other.

Research contributing to the classification and prioritization of preventive activities using Kano and Fuzzy-AHP methods is not available. In the critical time of COVID-19, when governments are obliged to deal with many infected patients and a high number of deaths, one can focus on different preventive activities according to their classification, weights and ranks.

This study aims to identify levels of gender perception specific to disaster management process and gender-related factors among the health workers employed at Çan State Hospital, Turkey.

The study was carried out with a survey form consisting of 41 questions created by researchers with 207 health workers working at Çan State Hospital and by means of face-to-face interview technique. SPSS ver. 19.0 statistics software package was used in the research for analysis of data.

Of the participants, 70.24% had experienced a disaster before; 88.03% reported that women and men were equally affected by disasters and 72.94% reported that women and men were equally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of the participants (70.29%) reported that the COVID-19 pandemic affected health workers of both genders equally. The health workers who consider that the disaster legislation is gender-sensitive, who have attended any disaster response training and who consider that women are included in the fragile/vulnerable group in disaster response activities have been found out to have significantly higher gender perception scores specific to disaster management process (p < 0.05). Most of the participants stated that both genders were affected equally by the disasters they experienced, which manifests that they adopted an egalitarian approach.

This study revealed the importance of providing disaster training for health workers to improve the gender perceptions. It is of high significance to integrate gender into the disaster trainings.

This study identifies and evaluates health workers' disaster-specific perceptions of gender, and necessary response activities can be performed accordingly.

The study analyses the resilience of food rescue organisations’ operating as “essential services” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020) in Aotearoa New Zealand. It explores the impact of COVID-19 on the organisations’ operation, preparedness, and potential positive impacts.

The study employed a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with 19 out of 23 active food rescue organisations across the country. Interview participants included CEOs, founders, managers, and coordinators.

The study identifies six impact areas experienced by food rescue organisations during COVID-19, policy and preparedness, funding, operation - logistics and personnel, supply continuity, food security and sector collaboration. Despite these impacts, the organisations showcased admirable resilience through innovation, adaptability, and collaborative practices, enabling the continuation of their services during the crisis.

The paper provides a three-stage crisis management framework to guide the development and implementation of a crisis management plan to improve the resilience and preparedness of food rescue organisations’ response to future crises. The framework is flexible and adaptable to each food rescue organisation’s unique operation and capacity.

This paper offers a retrospective analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 on 83% of food rescue organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is the first paper to study the impact of COVID-19 on food rescue organisations.

In March 2020 the United Nations published an open brief for the creative community to propose interventions to the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. However, when faced with unprecedented wicked problems such as these, the rigour of design and creative processes can tested. COVID-19 has demonstrated how important human centred design responses are in understanding the worldviews and ecosystems of users. Ad hoc design responses or design hacks have demonstrated that they have a role to play in how we create our future individual, community and societal ecosystems.

In terms of age friendly design, this pandemic makes us envision what should be, furthermore, how we could create better products and services through technology. For our ageing communities “Cocooning” and other social restriction measures have exposed technological deficiencies for the needs of older people and opens up questions of our future preparedness for a growing ageing society. Now more than ever, designers need to understand the behavioural mind-set of older people in their own ecosystem and understand existing mental models.

In this opinion piece we posit what acts of design hacking can lead us to greater understanding of users mental models and therefore better understanding of technology needs for both older and younger adults. While presenting various examples of how design hacking is conducted by citizens and participants alike, it shows that it offers designers differing perspectives, experiences and inspiration for technology.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of perceived risk (perceived susceptibility and perceived severity), self-efficacy and individual differences (personal innovativeness and mobile payment knowledge) on consumers’ intention to use contactless mobile payment services (MPS). Additionally, it also empirically tested the moderating effect of hygiene consciousness in the proposed conceptual model.

The present research developed a conceptual model based on the health belief model (HBM) and diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) to empirically assess whether and how perceived risk, self-efficacy and individual differences influence consumer intention to use contactless MPS. The data was collected using the survey method from 251 smartphone users and analyzed with structural equation modeling. The moderating role of hygiene consciousness was studied in the relationship that self-efficacy and personal innovativeness shares with consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS.

The results of this study disclose that among all precursors of consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS, only perceived severity, self-efficacy, personal innovativeness and mobile payment knowledge positively affect consumers’ intention to use contactless MPS. However, the effect of perceived susceptibility on consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS was found to be non-significant. The results further depict that hygiene consciousness acts as a moderator in driving consumers’ intention toward contactless mobile payment services.

The HBM model and DOI, which incorporate perceived risk, self-efficacy, individual differences and hygiene consciousness, give light on the factors influencing consumer intention to use contactless MPS in a pandemic situation such as COVID-19. The study will provide useful insights to marketers on how to frame their strategies in the aftermath of pandemics, as the contactless mobile payment method may be perceived as a defensive behavior during and after pandemics.

The study will provide useful insights to marketers on how to frame their strategies in the aftermath of pandemics, as the contactless mobile payment method may be perceived as a defensive behavior during and after pandemics.

By uniting perceived risk, self-efficacy and individual differences with consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS in a conceptual model, along with examining the moderating role of hygiene consciousness, this work responds to the calls for upcoming research concerning mobile payment systems as means of future payment. Thus, it offers an understanding of particular consumer motivations that may guide consumers’ intention toward contactless MPS through the theoretical lens of HBM and DOI.