Lifebuoy Hackwashing
Hindustan Unilever Ltd
Issue 57 | December 2020
Agency
Geometry Encompass
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Arpan Jain Sr. Creative Director Meenal Brahmane Associate Creative Director Sandeep Gaur Creative Group Head Madhurya Alankaar Creative Director Shravan Mairale Associate Creative Director Bedanta Thakuria
Production Team
Production Team Ajay Mishra, Ashish Shrivastava, Deepak Rao, Bijesh Dutta
Other Credits
Planning Director Tavleen Kaur Planning Manager Rhea Jain Managing Partner Shankar Shinde Associate Business Director Siddharth Agarwal
Date
2020
Background
After using the toilet and before eating, 60% of Indians wash their hands with water only.
This has helped the spread of diseases like cholera, diarrhoea and pneumonia let alone COVID-19.
Kumbh is the world’s largest religious festival attracting 50 million people on a single day and as many as 150 million over its entirety.
Lifebuoy had the herculean task of trying to make Kumbh safer for visitors.
Idea
The idea was to “hack” the existing behaviour of festival-goers. They already rinsed their hands with water, so the question was how to add soap? The answer was to stamp devotees’ hands while they queued for food and the toilets.
A special ink was made with the Lifebuoy formula, which turned into anti-bacterial soap when brought in contact with water.
Handwashing with soap was no longer an option. It was unavoidable, with the added benefits of no discounted samples or waste.
Results
5 million people were stamped, contributing to 30% fewer infections than the previous edition of the festival.
The campaign contributed 5% to Lifebuoy's global mission of educating one billion people about handwashing.
Our Thoughts
Covid has thrown up some startling statistics about hygiene. Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Reckitt Benckiser, whose Dettol brand has seen sales soar during the pandemic, has said that 70% of people globally don’t wash their hands after going to the loo. In the supposedly civilized UK, 30% of men don’t bother with it.
To date (mid-November) there have been 8.96 million cases of Covid-19 in India and 132,000 deaths. That ranks it among the countries with the lowest cases per million so full credit to Lifebuoy for their contribution.