I is for Influence
One thing that unites humanity – regardless of skin color, religion, nationality, or political ideology – is that we are all lazy and gross.
Not enough people wash their hands properly – not even people working in healthcare environments. Lifebuoy has attempted to change this habit from the ground up through an award-winning campaign called “H is for Handwashing.”
There are two key lessons here for how brands can help people break old habits and establish new ones.
The first lesson is that it is harder to break a habit than it is to prevent the habit from starting in the first place. Lifebuoy’s target audience was children who were just learning the alphabet. You know how you learn “A is for apple,” “B is for ball,” “C is for cat,” etc? They spread the word in schools that “H is no longer for “hat” or “house” but for “handwashing.”
Lifebuoy partnered with Sesame Workshop and children’s authors to create books and other materials that reinforced the message that “H is for Handwashing.” They also partnered with local and national governments to make sure “H is for Handwashing” was officially part of the curriculum.
The second lesson is about the use of peer influence. The brand named 100,000 kids age 6-12 in 20 countries “CEOs” (Chief Education Officers) whose role was to help sustain the new handwashing habit among their peers and families.
The campaign reached 250 million people and strongly drove key brand equity metrics for Lifebuoy. I guess the central non-marketing question is whether the campaign actually drove better hand-washing habits. I have not seen any studies about that, although logic suggests there should be some impact.
(In the US, some state governments use a different approach. They use statistics that say 4 in 5 people DO wash their hands properly as the engine for a PSA called “The Fifth Guy.” The message is, “Don’t be the fifth guy.” It shows how you can use stigma and shame effectively if you do it with humor – and also shows the power of social norms to influence behavior.)