Branded socially marketed condoms in Gasabo District: case study among men, users and retailers of age 15-35

Abstract

Condom use is still low in Rwanda compared to its neighboring countries. In fact, accordingly to the Condom Accessibility Survey conducted in 2006, stigma was identified as a major reason for non-use. 55% of CAS respondents said people don’t use because they are afraid to be considered as « vagabond sexuel »; 53.3% of people think that people who use condoms are promiscuous.Due to the low level of acceptability of condoms, many people are embarrassed to ask for condoms from shop owners and health workers, they will send kids to buy condoms. It is considered unacceptable for girls to buy condoms. If they do, they are considered prostitutes PSI/Rwanda has been doing social marketing since 1995 and launched its first Prudence brand since then. Plaisir brand has been launched later in 2010 as a second line for socially marketed brand in Rwanda. There have been substantial work done and we were interested to explore the up to date progress so far to remove barriers and motivate condom use in Rwanda. The main objective for the study was to assess the impact of social marketing activities and explore the perceptions of socially marketed brands that translate to the condom use among sexually active men in Gasabo district. The survey targeted men aged 15-35 either users or retailers who sell condoms to get a full picture of what are the perceptions from the end consumer and understand as well what is done to make condoms accessible. We used a combination of secondary analysis and primary survey using both qualitative and quantitative methodology. The field survey was conducted in August 2012, 4 Focus groups discussions were conducted with 22 men aged 15-35 segmented by age and economic status: 2 FGDs with men aged 15-24, students, without economic revenues and 2 FGDs with men aged 25-35 with economic revenues. A discussion guide was used for moderation of the FGDs. For the retailers, 45 outlets were proportionally sampled, 3 outlets in each of the 15 sectors of the Gasabo districts were interviewed using a pre-coded questioner with close and open-ended questions. The main findings could be summarized following the marketing mix 4P’approach On the Product, condoms brand preference was explored and although there are widely diversified preferences and reasons of preferences, findings show that Plaisir is predominantly preferred by men aged 15-35 (59%) mainly they perceive it packaging nicely designed and found it beautiful. One could think that if the survey is done at a higher scale and this result is confirmed, condom programmers should consider purchasing and availing more Plaisir to motivate use. A successful promotion of the popular Plaisir brand might help encourage wider condom use Additionally, while the reasons for using condoms were widely known as agreed as mean to protect sexually transmitted diseases and family planning, there were also a number of reasons of non-use which were: ignorance, religious believes, trust, abstinence for youth until marriage, etc. On the Price, findings revealed some interesting indications on more work to do on pricing since the willingness to pay was different from the actual selling price and this could be a potential barrier to consumers. A comparison of pricing revealed Plaisir to be twice cheaper than its most competitor lifeguard and the willingness to pay from the consumers was higher than the retail selling price. For the Place, findings showed that consumers most preferred outlet for condoms was boutique which was reflected by the quantitative survey. The brands visibility was very good inside the outlets but outside the outlets, promotional items were not such widely displayed. Retailers who did not sell Plaisir said they had no demand or they found the product expensive and for Prudence, the main reason for not selling was the insufficient profit . Finally, in terms of promotion, the results indicated that more sensitization targeting youth in and out of schools and interestingly, majority of interviewers found the persons buying condom as ‘responsible’. There are still a portion of persons who still think that a person who is buying a condom is either a sexual vagabond or just a prostitute. Based on findings, recommendations were formulated to increase condom use including scaling up this survey to a bigger sample that will provide a more comprehensive picture of the total market dynamics in Rwanda, base condom brand preference in supply chain decisions, focusing on messages that address the identified barriers which are trust, ignorance, religious believes etc. PSI/Rwanda should implement a direct distribution strategy for Plaisir to improve its penetration as it is the most preferred brand among youth and partners involved in condoms programming to work together to make condoms as widely as available to the consumer. These recommendations will certainly contribute to improve condom use in Rwanda.