Lifebuoy, the world’s largest hygiene soap has a century plus legacy of fighting germs and saving lives. The brand over decades has been driving the crucial education around handwashing as a life-saving habit. The brand has run multiple on ground programs that has traversed traditional conduits like schools, villages and also some out-of-box, innovative hygiene interventions at mass religious congregations like the Kumbh Mela in India.

Food is an indispensable part of Indian festivals but more often than not, this food is eaten with unwashed hands exposing devotees to germs and illnesses. Therefore, in the land of festivals, Lifebuoy found yet another opportunity of using religious gatherings to drive education on the importance of handwashing. We had two objectives:

1. Use Durga Puja, one of India’s largest festival as a platform to drive awareness amongst devotes about handwashing before meals.

2. Make the message contextual and impactful to ensure receptivity.

During Durga Puja, devotees flock to worship goddess Durga and enjoy warm bhog (blessed food). How could we ensure millions of devotees attending Durga Puja ate holy bhog with clean hands? Given the depth of devotion to goddess Durga, we realized that people would never ignore a message from the goddess herself and that was our insight. Germ Nashini, or the Germ Destroyer, used the goddess’ ‘blessing hand gesture’ to symbolize the destruction of germs. The device worked on a simple motion sensor, devotees had to place their hands in front of the goddess’s blessing hand for Lifebuoy hand sanitizer to be automatically dispensed.

Germ Nashini literally means destroyer of germs which was an apt metaphor attached to goddess Durga who is also known as the destroyer of evil.

There were 3 key target audience that Lifebuoy wanted to attract through this activation:

Devotees: The Germ Nashini was placed across Pandals (marquees) where bhog was served, ensuring every devotee was targeted and no one ate bhog without cleaning their hands.

Local Media Channels: Indian festivals gain a lot of attention from media outlets who cover events on key days. Germ Nashini as a result of its unique form and design stood out of the clutter of brands, catching media attention during the festival and even after.

Durga Puja organizers: Through this activation the aim was to catch the eye of Durga Puja organizers, who would appreciate the importance and commit to providing Germ Nashini every year to the devotees as a means to protect them from germs.

The activation was conducted in the 3 biggest cities where the Durga Puja festival is celebrated in large numbers – Mumbai, Kolkata and Guwahati. Lifebuoy targeted 3 big Durga Pandals (marquees) in each of these cities where large footfalls were ensured. The Germ Nashini was placed in each Durga Puja Pandal in a central location, where devotees would congregate before consuming ‘bhog’ (sacred food).The live activation was also captured on video, released on 18th October 2018 on Youtube, Instagram and Twitter and was covered by multiple digital websites. Kajol, famous Indian celebrity shared the activation video and message through her Twitter account. Indian festivals are covered extensively by local media like newspapers and Germ Nashini attracted the attention of multiple regional and national newspapers as well.

1. Reached over 2.3 million devotees with the message during the festival.

2. Covered by over 15 news channels & media publications.

3. Most of all caught the eye of local Durga Puja event organizers who are keen to install the Germ Nashini next year in their own pandals.