Content uploaded by Sujo Thomas
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Sujo Thomas on Aug 11, 2022
Content may be subject to copyright.
Saving lives through Lifebuoy’s ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ Campaign
i
Sonal Kureshi
a
and Sujo Thomas
b
a
Marketing Area, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, India
b
Marketing Department, Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, India
Campaign Background and Environment
Lifebuoy soap was launched in the year 1895 with the goal to prevent cholera in the
Victorian England. It has been working towards better health and hygiene across
several countries. Marketed as a health soap brand, Lifebuoy along with its partners
continued to run several hygiene related promotional social initiatives. It had
impacted the lives of nearly 183 million people in 16 countries.
1
The vision was “to
make 5 billion people across the world, feel safe and secure by meeting their personal
care hygiene and health needs” through their hand washing programs.
2
Large number of people especially in rural India lacked access to proper sanitation
and safe drinking water which led to bad hygiene practices. India had the highest
number (380,000) of annual child (< 5 years) deaths occurring due to diarrhea. It
translated to nearly 1,000 deaths per day.
3
Tackling these problem was critical to
reduce mortality from diseases originating from poor hygiene habits. Hindustan
Unilever (Parent company) over the years, through its brands Lifebuoy, Pureit and
Domex had addressed a lot of hygiene issues prevailing in India.
WHO (2016)
4
report revealed that diarrhea was one of the major causes of death
amongst children under five years of age. One of the ways to reduce these deaths was
following a regular hand washing habit with soap which also proved to be a cost
effective mechanism. The goal of Lifebuoy through its various initiatives was to
increase awareness and change attitude towards hand washing with soap ultimately
leading to a lifesaving behavioral transformation.
‘Help a Child Reach 5’ Campaign
Drawing on its past linkage with health and hygiene, Lifebuoy had launched its new
campaign in India called ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ in the year 2012. The campaign was
launched in the Indian village of Thesogra, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, which had
the highest rate of child diarrhea. In partnership with global bodies (USAID, WSUP
and PSI
*
) and non-government organizations at village community level, the company
*
United States Agency for International Development, Water and Sanitation for
the Urban Poor, Population Service International
1
https://www.unilever.com/news/Press-releases/2014/14-09-24-Unilever-
appeals-to-First-Ladies-to-Help-A-Child-Reach-5.html
2
https://www.hul.co.in/brands/our-brands/lifebuoy.html
3
https://www.unilever.com/brands/our-brands/lifebuoy.html
4
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs333/en/ Newborns: reducing
mortality Fact sheet Updated October 2017
attempted to take this campaign to the remote districts of India. The company engaged
their employees and trained professionals to visit homes, health center and schools to
create awareness regarding proper hand washing. Lifebuoy had designed a unique
social campaign to generate awareness about how the simple task of hand washing
could help save several lives every year. Reaching the age of five for child in some
parts of India was difficult due to diseases like diarrhea. An emotional real life story
advertisement and later a video of the same was aired on television as well as
YouTube. The response to this video encouraged the company to extend this
campaign to the other villages in India. Along with Children's Investment Fund
Foundation and Bihar State Government India, the next phase was launched in the
year 2013. It also included new mothers and midwives as their target in this phase by
visiting them at home and at health care centers to create awareness and encourage
hand washing with soap.
5
Moreover, they also carried out several other activities in
other states of India to promote the hand washing habit.
Lifebuoy adopted communication mediums like television, mobile and digital
platforms over direct contact to penetrate faster. These platforms were interactive with
respect to sharing stories and experiences by consumers which in due course proved
to be meaningful and far reaching.
6
Social Marketing Campaign by Competitors
Dettol Soap
The closest competitor to Lifebuoy in the Indian market was Dettol brand of soap.
The brand was competing with Lifebuoy on the health positioning and in the year
2015, it launched a social marketing campaign called “Dettol Banega Swachh India”.
They had partnered with Media Company NDTV and Facebook for this campaign
along with endorsement by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, the most well-known Indian
celebrity. The objective of this campaign was to address the hygiene and sanitation
needs in India.
7
One part of their campaign was a ‘School Hand Wash Program’ and
‘Young Mothers Program’. The other part was towards improving sanitation facilities.
Their main target was the pilgrimage city of Varanasi and the religious fairs at
Rishikesh and Ujjain in India. They undertook installation of incinerators, sanitary-
pad disposal machines, mirrors, exhaust fans and soaps for hand washing in one of the
girl’s school in Varanasi. The fair sites had volunteers providing water sprayer and
sanitizers at critical locations like food stalls, bathing areas and toilets to ensure
proper hand washing.
8
They also planned to build sanitation facilities in two other
states of India - Maharashtra and Bihar. They had enrolled the support of 500 village
community leaders, 500 natural and faith-based leaders, 500 accredited social health
5
https://www.unilever.com/Images/lifebuoy-way-of-life-2015_tcm244-
418692_en.pdf
6
https://www.unilever.com/Images/lifebuoy-way-of-life-2015_tcm244-
418692_en.pdf
7
http://www.dettol.co.in/en/banega-swachh-india/about-banega-swachh-
india/
8
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/csr-compendium-touching-lives-
2016/initiative/improved-sanitation-facility/articleshow/56137465.cms
activists, child care workers and mothers for this initiative.
9
To involve children and
turn them into spokespersons at home, a series of modules and game toolkits were
created to educate them about regular hygiene practices. The goal was to carry this
message to first, second and third grade students every year through 15 sessions. They
had made few schools to incorporate an e-curriculum for the same purpose.
10
Savlon Soap
Another closest competitor brand to Lifebuoy was Savlon brand owned by Johnson &
Johnson which had launched the campaign ‘Savlon Swasth India Mission’ in the year
2016. Under this initiative the brand had carried out interactive programs for adults
and children through storytelling and visual engagement to create awareness about
hygiene practices. Training about water, sanitation and hygiene practices were
imparted to students and teachers. In order to motivate the students, they themselves
were made responsible to ensure that healthy habits were observed by forming student
representative committees.
11
Another school engagement program was launched for students to discover the inertia
to hand wash with soap at lunch break and create chalk sticks which doubled up as
soap when hands were washed with water. Since rural India still used slate and chalk
for school work, it was decided to distribute it to several schools across the country.
The goal was to distribute and to reach around 1 million children across 2000
schools.
12
The objective behind this campaign was to bring about behavioral change
towards hand washing with soap.
The latest activity in furtherance of the same program had been initiated in three
metro cities in India - Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. This initiative created awareness
about the necessity of cleaning hands for street food vendors. Consumers were
encouraged to ring a bell which was placed at some stalls to remind the vendor to
wash hands before touching the food. Besides placing the bell, free Savlon sachets
were provided to the vendor.
13
SWOT Analysis
9
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/csr-compendium-touching-lives-
2016/initiative/creating-sanitation-change-leaders-at-community-
level/articleshow/56137361.cms
10
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/csr-compendium-touching-lives-
2016/initiative/driving-change-through-dettol-school-
modules/articleshow/56136613.cms
11
https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/advertising/savlon-
flags-off-new-brand-activation-campaign-swasth-india-mission/55413246
12
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/itc-campaign-for-savlon-
mission-bags-cannes-award/article9744777.ece
13
http://www.csrvision.in/savlon-swasth-india-embarks-on-a-unique-initiative-this-
world-hand-hygiene-day/
Strengths
• The red color of Lifebuoy soap had a strong brand association
• The carbolic smell was strongly linked to Lifebuoy soap.
• Lifebuoy soap was associated to hygiene and germ protection since its
inception
• Lifebuoy had extensive distribution ranging to more than 5 million outlets.
Weaknesses
• The initial positioning was as a masculine brand.
• Hygiene positioning made competing on beauty platform challenging
• Appeal was more rural than urban
Opportunities
• Ample opportunity to associate the brand with social initiatives
• Prospect of partnering with government and other non-profit organizations
• Global associations could be leveraged to strengthen the brand image
Threats
• Hygiene platform was getting crowded with other competitor brands
• Other competitors were introducing similar social campaigns
• Balancing between hygiene low priced versus beauty high end soaps was
tough
Target Audience
Lifebuoy ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ was a campaign under the overall global initiative of
sustainable living. This campaign included all stakeholders as their target audience
including villagers, school management, teachers and students, local health
communities alongside HUL employees. Mothers were their prime target as they were
identified as key agents of change both at home and school. Father’s involvement was
sought through community activities.
14
They also actively included new mothers as
the first 28 days were critical for survival of the infant. Their secondary audience was
the general public in India. Everyone involved was required to reinforce hand
washing activity at critical points like before eating, after defecating, playing, working
in the fields etc.
Different modes of communication were used to target different target audiences.
HUL employees were assigned to schools and villages in remote parts of India to
educate hand washing habits. Songs that would attract and remind children were used
to inculcate the hand washing behavior. They leveraged the power and penetration of
social media by making emotional appeals through video clips on YouTube. They
14
https://www.unilever.com/Images/lifebuoy-way-of-life-2015_tcm244-
418692_en.pdf
requested the people to make a pledge on Facebook and Twitter to ensure that every
child celebrates their fifth birthday.
The main hurdle that faced the target audience was the attitude and in turn the
behavior towards hand washing. Only 1% of the people in rural India in spite of
having access to soap were found to wash hands regularly before eating and after
defecating.
15
Availability of running water and basic infrastructure at schools was
another obstacle ahead of the company.
Campaign Objectives
There were three main objectives of this campaign: creating awareness, influencing
attitude and changing behavior. This was to strengthen the image of being a socially
concerned brand.
Creating awareness
Several activities were undertaken to create awareness about hand washing and its
impact on child mortality. This was done at two levels, first with the rural population
who were directly affected by lack of this habit and second with the urban population
to sensitize them towards the problem of child deaths due to avoidable diseases.
Influencing attitude
The next step was to influence the attitude towards hand washing itself. The
influencers in case of children were the teachers and parents while in case of new
mothers, it was the doctors and midwives. They were approached with repetitive
messages about hand washing evidence materials and reminders.
Changing behavior
This was the ultimate objective of the company for which all the stakeholders had to
be targeted. Their main objective was to drive hand washing behavior and make it a
permanent habit. Different campaign activities were focused on one single problem
‘not washing hands at critical times’. The objective was to present the solution in a
manner thereby leading to a lasting behavioral change.
Positioning
Initially, Lifebuoy had very little competition when it was first introduced in India in
the year 1895. Since 1933, it was positioned as a hygiene and germ protection hand
and body wash soap. It maintained this position in the mind of the consumers for
decades. It’s catchy advertisement and jingle in Hindi language was clearly
communicating this first on the radio and then with visuals on television.
After independence the red soap in a red rough wrapper started losing its appeal in the
urban markets with competing brands being positioned on the beauty platform. Over
15
https://www.hul.co.in/Images/lifebuoy-leads-pledge-to-help-children-reach-
their-fifth-birthday_tcm1255-463910_en.pdf
the years, Lifebuoy after several product line extensions and packaging modifications
had variants for both rural and urban consumers. However, it retained the hygiene and
germ protection arena in the soap market. In order to do achieve this objective, the
brand had followed the global positioning strategy and had launched several
campaigns in India to support the brand communication.
Campaign Strategies
Product Strategies
The red Lifebuoy logo was used to run many social marketing campaigns in India.
‘Help a Child Reach 5’ was one such campaign linked to this brand. The visual of the
logo was used since it communicated the core value of cleanliness and germ
protection to the rural population. The campaign was associated to the brand name
Lifebuoy without specifying any product in particular. They also later launched a
small Rs. 5/- mini soap bar.
Pricing Strategies
Since several variants of the Lifebuoy were available at different price points, the
campaign could attract a larger consumer base by associating itself with the whole
range of Lifebuoy soaps. The affordable soap bar could attract the rural consumers
while the other premium variants could appeal to the urban consumer base.
Place Strategies
The campaign was initiated in the most affected village of Thesgora in the central
India in the year 2012. Later in the year, several other villages in the Indian states of
Madhya Pradesh and Bihar were covered under this campaign. Lifebuoy trained
health promoters and visited rural primary schools in these villages to demonstrate
proper hand washing techniques.
Promotion Strategies
In order to ensure success of the campaign, the company at the onset identified the
villages who had to be targeted and other critical support partners. Those villages
which had high rate of child diarrhea were selected for this program. As for the
partners, government, local bodies and leaders were involved from the beginning for
assistance. The implementation was carried out by an expert team along with local
support to ensure better communication as well as understanding of ground reality.
16
Several activities were undertaken as a part of this campaign. A team of employees
visited the villages along with trained health promoters. House visits were conducted
to explain the importance of hand washing using pictorial guides. Mothers were given
monitoring sheets to ensure that they washed hands before touching the new born
baby. Government run child care center and school teachers were educated about
hand washing. Charts were given to children to record daily hand washing. School
16
https://www.unilever.com/Images/lifebuoy-way-of-life-2015_tcm244-
418692_en.pdf
teachers were requested to promote hand washing habits in the class room. Hand
washing was made fun through a variety of activities like songs and games. Novel fun
hand water pump in the shape of a horse was created.
Besides that advertisements and short ad films based on real life stories were created
and uploaded on YouTube. The first film was about ‘Gondappa’ who walked on his
hands to the deity when his child reached five years of age. The next film was about a
lady who had lost her child and had affection towards a tree. The third film showed
the unborn daughter of a pregnant women talking to her about hygiene practices. They
also provided a link for Facebook and Hashtag for Twitter where people could go and
pledge their support to the initiative.
Figure 1: Activities undertaken by Lifebuoy to promote hand washing habit. Photos
have been downloaded from
https://www.facebook.com/pg/LifebuoyIndia/photos/?ref=page_internal
A lifesaver volunteer program was started in the year 2014 to promote this campaign
in the various cities. Initially, hundred student volunteers from colleges were enrolled
and trained. They were required to visit schools and also their own communities. As
an extension of this, around 1000 Guide and Scout leaders in the states of
Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh were trained and under the four week global
program of called ‘School of 5’ which made the mundane task of hand washing into
fun filled activities through games and rewards. The leadership skills of these children
were used to impart education to their communities and further to atleast 10 other
children
17
.
Other important strategies
* Roti is an Indian flat bread
17
https://www.wagggs.org/es/news/wagggs-partners-lifebuoy-drive-handwashing-
soap-india/
Roti
*
Reminder: Another innovative activity undertaken by Lifebuoy was stamping of
its hand washing message onto millions of roti’s at a large religious fair held in India.
More than 100 restaurants and cafés were included as partners to help promote hand
washing awareness. The roti’s on top carried the message “Lifebuoy se haath dhoye
kya?” which was meant to be a reminder to wash hands with Lifebuoy soap.
Jump-Pumps: Joining hands with the
Government mid-day meal scheme
in two states of India, Lifebuoy
discovered the reason for inertia
about hand washing, it was the old
rusted hand pump the only source of
water at the schools. Lifebuoy team
replaced this with crafted rocking
horse using a simple mechanism.
Figure 2: Roti Reminder Photo taken from https://www.hul.co.in/brands/brand-
stories/lifebuoy-creates-innovative-roti-reminder.html
Program Evaluation
Evaluating the impact of the campaign, following facts could be observed:
• It generated awareness in the campaign leading to interest as seen from the
response to the videos on YouTube. More than 3.5 million views and 2 million
likes along with several thousand pledges on Facebook and Twitter were
recorded.
18
• Results from a survey by Nielsen of 579 households in Thesgora that overall
health of the community had improved.
19
• Further based on mother’s assessment, there was reduction in occurrence of
diarrhea from 36% to 5%.
• Higher percentage of mothers (33%) and children (26%) were using soap to
wash hands.
• Nearly 0.6 million children were educated about the importance of proper
hand washing by the year 2015.
20
• The results of this campaign in India had led to implementation of this
program in other states of India and further to other countries across the world.
• The second phase where the focus was on the neonatal period, the ad film
received 14 million views and was the most viewed advertisement in the year
2015.
21
18
https://www.socialsamosa.com/2013/03/social-media-campaign-review-
lifebuoy/
19
https://www.unilever.com/Images/lifebuoy-way-of-life-2015_tcm244-
418692_en.pdf
20
https://www.hul.co.in/Images/unilever-sustainable-living-plan-india-2015-
progress-report_tcm1255-483536_en.pdf
21
https://www.hul.co.in/Images/unilever-sustainable-living-plan-india-2015-
progress-report_tcm1255-483536_en.pdf
Discussions and Lessons Learned
HUL had adopted its global strategy in case of Lifebuoy and had integrated its
promotional approach with their sustainable living vision.
Over the years, Lifebuoy had been creating awareness about the importance of hand
washing through several campaigns in India. ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ was another
promotional activity that further associated Lifebuoy with its hygiene and germ free
platform. What began in a small village in India is now a campaign which has been
scaled up to reach several other villages not just in India but in several countries
across the world.
They identified a cost effective and easy way to deal with a serious issue like child
mortality through a simple task of hand washing. Hand washing message with soap at
five critical times in a day was disseminated. Besides creating awareness about this,
reminders about the same were ensured. This was done for at least 21 days as research
indicated that post 21 days a habit would eventually become a permanent practice.
They attempted to remove the barriers to hand washing with soap by using a variety
of creative promotional tools like banners, posters, games, ad-films to appeal to
different target audiences. Lifebuoy had gained market acceptance as a socially
trusted brand.
It was a planned and systematic approach of the company in connecting the problem
with the solution and further adopting it to promote the brand. The first lesson was the
significance of identifying appropriate target audience, powerful influencers and
decision makers. They had identified the influencers and decision makers who needed
to be engaged to achieve the positive results. Importance of implementation of the
campaign at ground level was another lesson. Moreover, it was not possible to
achieve the objective unless the company joined hands with partners like the
Government of various states in India plus big and small non-government
organizations. They also collaborated with celebrity spoke persons to help promote
the program and leveraged an emotional connect with the consumers. The consistent
message disseminated by the brand over the years and its association with hygiene
platform through several of its campaigns certainly led to a strong brand positioning.
Questions for discussion
1. Evaluate the campaign in light of the objectives of the company.
2. Should this social marketing campaign be continued and extended? If yes,
please justify and suggest suitable changes.
3. Do you think the promotional activities are effective for the given target
audience?
4. Suggest if any other target audience could be approached by the company for
better results?
5. What are the changes, if any, that you recommend in the message strategy
keeping in mind the campaign objective and the overall marketing objective?
i
This case has been prepared with the help of published sources and does not portray the viewpoint of
Hindustan Unilever Limited. The case is not designed to demonstrate either correct or incorrect handling of
managerial problems.
