Every year, 2 million children do not reach their fifth birthday because of diarrhoea and pneumonia. That’s one child every ten seconds.

We can prevent this from happening through the simple act of handwashing with soap.

As the world’s leading health soap, Lifebuoy created a global campaign, ‘Help a Child Reach 5’. The campaign aims to end deaths from preventable diseases through handwashing, helping more children get the chance to reach 5.

We started a movement to turn influential leaders, policymakers, consumers and employees into ambassadors to spread the handwashing message.

The campaign began on Global Handwashing Day (GHD) when we started a debate among policy makers and key influencers about how handwashing is the most cost effective intervention which will help achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

• We succeeded by gaining policy commitments from 14 governments.

At the same time, we drove consumer engagement through a Facebook pledge to help more children reach five, supported by locally-driven PR campaigns.

• Over 16 million people pledged (800% of target)

• Global readership: 4 billion

Inside Unilever, an internal campaign recruited employees to volunteer to teach handwashing in schools.

• 1/5 of employees globally (37,820) volunteered and taught +7million school children

To continue momentum after GHD, Lifebuoy launched viral film, Gondappa. This has achieved nearly 6.5 million views in less than one month.

The campaign is only the start. In the time it took you to read this summary, six more children lost the chance to reach five.

Planning: May – October

Implementation: 15th October onwards

Advocacy events:

• Global: Event invited high-level policymakers/influencers and media, leveraging Unilever’s partnership contacts (Led by Unilever CEO, Paul Polman and Jeffrey Sachs.

• In countries: Guides created to help Lifebuoy markets host events with KOFs and media.

• Ongoing media briefings were held in the lead up to the event.

Country-level PR:

• PR and advocacy toolkits created to help Lifebuoy brand teams generate media coverage and communicate to policymakers/key influencers.

• Global helpdesk function set up to aid country implementation.

Digital PR:

• Facebook content strategy was created to raise awareness / inspire action (pledging).

• Drove campaign and pledging via Twitter.

• GHD took over Yahoo home page on October 15.

Employee engagement:

• Big multi-channel internal drive to recuit employees and show how teaching handwashing in schools on GHD will contribute to Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan.

Business impact

• Increase campaign awareness in key markets (70% Indonesia, 50% Pakistan).

• Achieve Lifebuoy sales growth in key markets (Q3-Q4 2012): Nigeria +58%, Indonesia +11%, South Africa +11% and Vietnam +5%.

Awareness:

• Nearly 6.5 million views of Gondappa viral film in one month.

• Gained 2 million Facebook fans (200% of target) and reached 2.7 million people on Twitter.

• 4 billion readership (global/local).

• €2,516,936 PR value.

• Articles on handwashing in influential global media including Huffington Post (front page) CNN, BBC, Forbes, Bloomberg, Dow Jones.

• Over 700 global policymakers engaged.

• 90% global share of voice (corporate/consumer).

• Campaign activation in 46 Lifebuoy markets.

Action

• 16+ million individual campaign pledges on Facebook (800% of target).

• Secured commitments from 14 governments to improve hygiene policy.

• 1/5 of all employees globally (38,760) taught +7 million children.

• 3x handwashing Guinness World Record efforts.