Small changes make a big impact. For instance, the simple act of washing hands with soap or handwash can prevent many illnesses and even death.
Driving a positive impact on people’s attitude towards hygiene is not always easy unless companies can coax and convince them on why this is critical. This changed during the pandemic, when healthcare professionals and global bodies like the World Health Organization prioritised cleaning hands properly to steer clear of Covid-19.
Leading stakeholders like Reckitt went the extra mile to educate people about the importance of hand hygiene, coming up with different ways to change their behaviour and attitude towards it. However, Reckitt knew that changing habits is possible only when initiatives are undertaken at the grassroots level.
During the height of the pandemic, Reckitt collaborated with Lixil Group and USAID to bundle 500,000 bars of Dettol soap. This was bundled with Lixil Group’s SATO Tap for developing markets to help build a sustainable sanitation and hygiene market.
The unique SATO Tap, an affordable solution designed for homes and facilities without access to running water, was introduced in June 2020. It can be fitted with a wide variety of plastic bottles to serve as a water tank, and releases a steady stream of water—enough to wash one’s hands, and still conserve it.
But products aren’t enough. Communication of key messages is essential. In 2015, McCann Erickson came up with a series of TV commercials (TVCs) for Dettol, with the jingle Dettol Dettol Ho. With the slogan, Maa maane Dettol ka dhula (Mother trusts Dettol), they encouraged healthy handwashing habits, and promoted a new product, Dettol Squeezy. In those days, Prasoon Joshi, now CEO and CCO, McCann Worldgroup India, and Chairman, McCann Asia Pacific, explains, “The Dettol jingle was a musical way of reminding people about cleanliness. We wanted to be persuasive, yet entertaining, without being instructional.”
Srinivasan K. Swamy, CMD, RK Swamy, an ad agency, says that many campaigns did well, but rare ones stuck in mind due to right messaging. “Brands like Dettol have become quite salient,” he notes. “The category (handwashing products) entered the monthly shopping lists in most homes, and I suspect the penetration levels to be in double digits.”
Talk To The Hand
The release of the fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in May 2022, had some reasons to celebrate. The survey, which covered around 6.37 lakh sample households from 707 districts in the country, covering 7,24,115 women and 1,01,839 men, found that sanitation facilities had gone up from 49% to 70%. This improvement is also reflected in handwashing facilities with soap and water, which saw a growth from 60% to 78% in a year.
While some might look at this as a positive sign, the number of those who don’t wash hands is a cause for concern. When the pandemic broke out, experts emphasised that washing hands regularly is an excellent protective measure. From the beginning, Randeep Guleria, the-then Director, AIIMS, shared and re-shared guidelines on handwashing techniques. He insisted that people use hand sanitiser to keep hands clean when they do not have access to soap and/or water.
In March 2020, Google paid tribute to Hungarian physician, Ignaz Semmelweis, globally recognised as the first to discover medical benefits of handwashing. Dubbed ‘the father of infection control, he confidently said that medical personnel should wash hands in between patient examinations, which resulted in a drop in infection rates at the Vienna General Hospital.
During the pandemic, when we were cooped indoors, and social media was a primary source for information, an Internet challenge called #SafeHands gained ground.
Introduced by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, it urged individuals to share videos, when they washed hands for 40 seconds or more, on their handles. The global health body appealed to celebrities to participate to ensure that the message created better awareness.
Many joined the initiative, including Huffington Post’s founder Arianna Huffington, singer Selena Gomez, model Gigi Hadid, and footballer Alisson Becker. Closer home, Bollywood actresses Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone, former world women badminton champion, P.V. Sindhu, serial-movies producer Ekta Kapoor, and India’s former cricket captain Virat Kohli, along with his actress wife, Anushka Sharma, shared videos, and encouraged followers to follow suit.
Dettol India, too, created the #HandWashChallenge challenge on TikTok to reiterate how handwashing helps to mitigate the spread of coronavirus and get people to wash their hands frequently. TikTok users had to wash their hands while dancing to Dettol’s ‘handwashing song’ and then tag their friends to take the challenge forward. The campaign launched on 14 March 2020 saw the participation of popular actors like Kartik Aaryan and Urvashi Rautela, along with influencers including Riyaz Aly, Avneet Kaur, Nisha Guragain and Suraj Pal Singh. Within four days, the #HandWashChallenge had amassed nine billion views on the platform and according to TikTok it had generated 48.3 billion views by 15 April 2020.
Swamy is unsurprised by the agility shown by brands; he feels the crisis presented them with huge opportunities. “New players entered the space, and many exited as well. It was the fear of the unknown; the ecosystem urged everyone to wash hands, and social norms on display — like hand sanitiser outside every store — got people to adopt the new behaviour. Brand messaging was responsible, and not competitive,” he explains.
A Dash Of Fun
Each brand dreams of ads that go viral, but few succeed. The reason? The inherent message is often a sanctimoniously holier-than-thou one, rather than an entertaining one. Fun ads, on the contrary, promote themselves. Unconvinced? Take a look at the DD ads from the 1970s and 1980s! Most were informative, but lacked the panache of funny punchlines. Even the 2008 TVC, Saaf haath mein dum hai (Clean hands have power), where Little Master Sachin Tendulkar urged younger people to improve health and hygiene. The ad was broadcast in 14 languages, and aimed to target students in over six million schools. But it had a preachy overtone, and missed the mark.
The current ads learnt from the past. Most are funny, and some are quirky and downright hilarious. They hit home runs with their wackiness. The pandemic forced most brands to don new thinking hats because the new virus could enter through surface contacts.
Forever Protected
Even as Covid-19 seems to be in the rearview, brands realised that they need to come up with ways to grab consumers’ attention so that people handwash regularly, or carry sanitiser bottles. Earlier this year, Himalaya Wellness released a new ‘Let Kids Be Kids’ TVC for Tulsi purifying handwash. It follows the adventures of two young siblings, who build a DIY kennel for stray puppies, repair cycles or help mothers in kitchen. Devised by 82.5 Communications, it encourages parents to allow children to explore the environment, even if they get hands dirty, without worries.
Naveen Raman, Senior VP and Branch Head (South), 82.5 Communications, feels that the agency finds the right balance between brand values and category codes. “Protection is the foremost need in this category. We married it seamlessly with care and warmth, which are the true values of Himalaya,” he adds. Sangeetha Sampath and Ravikumar Cherussola, creative directors at the company, say that protection is a part of life. “Children need to be protected. But childhood is for freedom and learning. We wanted to tell mothers that children can experience these, and still stay protected from germs.”
Hard-Learnt Lessons
In 2008, the Global Handwashing Day was established by Global Handwashing Partnership to promote hand hygiene. This coalition works to encourage the simple hygiene practice as a pillar of international development and public health through associations with brands and campaign narratives. Over the years, brands, including Reckitt, celebrated it. In 2014, in a global campaign, Give Life a Hand, spanning 27 countries, schoolchildren participated in a virtual relay. They were taught simple handwashing steps. The kids passed on the baton, through a virtual platform, to peers in Sydney, Beijing, Dhaka, New Delhi, Karachi, the Middle East, Johannesburg, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Mexico and Costa Rica.
To celebrate Global Handwashing Day in 2020, a TVC created by Ogilvy India showed artist Swapna Augustine use feet for everything, from painting to eating, and ends with her washing feet; thereby underlining the importance of hygiene. Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, chief creative officers at Ogilvy India, say, “Our messaging on Global Handwashing Day is that much more needs to be done to touch a nerve about the habit of handwashing.”
Even in the post-pandemic world, as the viral fears continue to diminish, companies, brands and ad agencies have to do their best to ensure that people do not forget the criticality of handwashing over the next few years. This small and simple behaviour change centered on self-care can significantly impact health and wellbeing. Businesses have to pass on the message at regular intervals and reinforce it. In the end, however, the ball, or the hands and hygiene habits, will continue to remain in the consumers’ basins.
