2013 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The Challenge To bring to life Lifebuoy’s advocacy for health and hygiene by engaging consumers with the initiative of the Global Handwashing Day. Strategy and implementation We asked consumers to take part in setting a new Guinness World Record to promote their participation and ignite the interest of media; the challenge was set by Guinness World Records to a minimum of 50 different nationalities. We launched an integrated campaign (Digital, PR, Radio, Press, in-Mall activation), to create awareness about our cause and recruit participants. Results The website scored 35,000 views in 10 days, and a total of 1200 applications. The region’s leading TV channels, radio stations, newspapers and bloggers attended the event allowing to reach more than 470,000 consumers. We gathered 350 people for a total of 72 different nationalities in the name of a good cause and set the Guinness World Record of: “The most individuals with different nationalities washing their hands simultaneously”. The PR campaign was an essential leg of our campaign, to amplify the message and reach in order to: 1) raise awareness of the millions of deaths caused by lack of hand hygiene worldwide, and spread the core message of the Global Handwashing Day. 2) gather enough participants from the minimum of 50 different nationalities.

The Brief

Our core target were adults living in Dubai, 20+, from different nationalities, generally aware of the consequences of germs but not fully aware of the entity of the consequences of lack of hands hygiene.The task was to create an activity in support of the Global Handawshing Day initiative which would promote the participation of the consumers and generate enough word of mouth to spread the core message of the Global Handwashing Day. Although charity is not a directly relevant socio-cultural component in this area, we relied on the fact that cause-oriented events easily catch people’s interest and media attention .

Results

The website we created for the event received 35,000 views in 10 days, and a total of 1200 applications were submitted. The resonance of the event reached participants outside the country,who flew from their home countries (Mr. Harold Heimer - Germany). The event attracted wide media attention, with the region’s leading TV channels, radio stations, newspapers and bloggers in attendance allowing to reach more than 470,000 consumers. We gathered a total of 72 different nationalities together in the name of a good cause and for what is now the Guinness World Record of: “The most individuals with different nationalities washing their hands simultaneously”. (http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/4000/most-nationalities-washing-their-hands-simultaneously)

Execution

A 10 days integrated campaign was then launched using Radio, Print, PR, In-mall activations and Direct Mailing All these channels led to a micro site that worked as a main landing hub, educating people on the cause of the Global Handwashing Day and building a database of applicants for our event at the same time. At the end of the campaign we selected participants from different nationalities to reach the minimum of nationalities required by Guinness World Records to validate our attempt, and gathered them in a single venue in Dubai (Atlantis, The Palm). On October 10th, 2012, we perform the record attempt under the scrutiny of a Guinness World Records officer, and succeeded in our attempt. The campaign did benefit from the Media fallout for the next 3 weeks after the event was successfully concluded, and generated more word-of-mouth than initially expected.

The Situation

An important brand value of the Lifebuoy brand is to support hygiene education in the developing countries by supporting projects that motivate consumers to improve their hygiene behavior, a spirit which led the brand to be a co-founder of the Global Hand Washing Day. The initiative was brought to life to reduce mortality rates caused by diseases related to lack of hygiene. Lifebuoy wanted to support Global Handwashing Day 2012 with an event that would promote the engagement of the consumer and generate enough word of mouth to spread the message in support of health and hygiene.

The Strategy

We sought direct participation from the consumers asking their help to set a new Guinness World Record on the occasion of the Global Hand Washing Day 2012. We wanted to take advantage of a really unique feature of the country to make our record resonate with the spirit of the region and the people who live here, as well as with the brand and the cause we were promoting. We liaised with Guinness World Records to create a new world record attempt gathering individuals from as many different nationalities as possible in one venue to wash their hands simultaneously. The challenge was accepted and a minimum of 50 different nationalities was set.