 "Lifebuoy makes a brilliant non-ad film")
Just a fortnight ago, we saw Lifebuoy ‘advertise’ on chapattis at the Kumbh Mela. The innovative campaign, created by OgilyAction for Lifebuoy, saw chapattis being ‘branded’ with a message on the need to wash one’s hands before eating. You can see the campaign here . What made the activity ‘commercial’ was the fact that the chapattis had the Lifebuoy name branded onthem, making the activity look like advertising.
If that seemed like clever (and effective) advertising, a new initiative from Lifebuoy tugs at the heartstrings.
[caption id=“attachment_633878” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]
The Lifebuoy ad campaign at the Kumbh Mela.[/caption]
Watch this film below.
“Every year 2 million children under the age of 5, die of infections like Diarrhoea and Pneumonia. For the past 10 years, Lifebuoy soap has tried to help prevent these deaths by teaching children the simple act of washing hands with soap. We now take our life saving mission to Thesgora, an Indian village with one of the highest rates of Diarrhoea,” Lifebuoy says in their descriptor on the Youtube page.
On their Facebook page, the numbers differ, though. The 2 million becomes 3.5 million - but that’s to quibble. The important take out is that lives of young children could be saved by better hygiene.
“While Lifebuoy products provide accessible hygiene, as the world’s leading health soap, we know there is more that we can do. For this reason, the Lifebuoy brand aims to make a difference in peoples’ day-to-day lives by helping to promote health & hygiene, and in particular encourage people to wash their hands with soap. Each year around 3.5 million children under 5 die from diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections, such as pneumonia. Handwashing with soap is the single most cost-effective way to preventdiarrhoeal-related deaths and disease, with the potential to reduce deaths from diarrhoeal diseases by almost half and acute respiratory infections by one quarter,” says the FB page.
If you wanted to know more, you would google ‘Thesgora’ and try and figure out where it is and learn why Lifebuoy chose this village. Thesgora, as far as one can make out, is in Madhya Pradesh.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThat’s where Lifebuoy is headed, to try and reduce incidents of diarrhoea.
This is the new advertising - where you don’t advertise.
Anant Rangaswami was, until recently, the editor of Campaign India magazine, of which Anant was also the founding editor. Campaign India is now arguably India's most respected publication in the advertising and media space. Anant has over 20 years experience in media and advertising. He began in Madras, for STAR TV, moving on as Regional Manager, South for Sony’s SET and finally as Chief Manager at BCCL’s Times Television and Times FM. He then moved to advertising, rising to the post of Associate Vice President at TBWA India. Anant then made the leap into journalism, taking over as editor of what is now Campaign India's competitive publication, Impact. Anant teaches regularly and is a prolific blogger and author of Watching from the sidelines.