Can you help young people choose condoms over emergency contraceptive pills? And to only use pills as a last resort?

A 6-month sprint with SHOPS Plus, ABT Associates & USAID to improve condom adoption among unmarried youth (18–24)

• Conducted in-depth interviews with college students and young professionals in Delhi & Bhubaneshwar
  
• Identified deep behavioral barriers: bad first experiences, choice overload, shame, and unclear cues
• Immersed in the purchase experience - to buy a condom before the act vs. to buy an emergency contraceptive pill after the act
  

Designed low-friction, judgment-free pathways to condom purchase & use

Everyone keeps trying to convince the youth about how cool condoms are. And focuses on the pleasure story - to counter the perceived lack of it.

But this focus on the passion-pleasure narrative - reflected in the way even the condom packs are designed, results in the unintended consequence of it being harder to be discreet during purchase. Especially for unmarried youth. 

So picture this, here’s someone who is convinced that they should use a condom. Goes to the store. But is made to hurry through purchase owing to how brazen the packs look. And the stares received from the pharmacy uncle. The result: Buying whatever the pharmacist gives me when I ask for a condom. This is determined not by users’ sexual experience, but by margins. So Manforce, Chocolate, Dotted it was. Brand - no problem. But because of the confusion around which variable is most important, flavour started to wrongly assume most importance. And Dotted, for a first-timer? Possibly the worst one to buy for a brand new couple - even if you’ve had many sexual partners before.

This was what we set out to solve.

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