As with the rest of the world, the COVID-19 situation in Pakistan was peaking yet again in 2021. In Pakistan, where education is low, and fatalism high, it was even tougher to convince the population to follow protection guidelines such as social distancing.

Our objective, especially coming up to the annual Eid religious festival that draws millions of people to pray at crowded indoor mosques, was to not only spread an awareness message of social distancing, but to provide the population with a tool that would enable them to do so.

Traditional Islamic prayer mats – or the jaanemaz - are about 70cm wide, and used in mosques where Muslims pray close to each other. This prayer mat demarcates a personal space to pray within that would not be disturbed or intruded upon by others.

To build social distancing amongst mosque-visitors, we widened the individual prayer mat to 220cm with a message imprinted amongst its motif that reminds worshippers to maintain a safe distance.

This was the first time in almost a thousand years that the dimensions of the Islamic prayer mat had been altered.

Our primary target for this activation was the mosque-visitor, who needed to be protected and given a wider personal space to pray within. But beyond that, we wanted to reach out to the wider population and spread an awareness message of the importance of social distancing.

The approach we had to take was within the respectful parameters of religious sensitivities - at no point could we seem offensive or commercial. Care had to be taken to make the audience a part of the experience, and to appeal to their sense of well-being, rather than coming across as aggressive or rebellious.

Our ultimate goal was to not only enable people to continue visiting mosques to pray, but more importantly to do it while being protected and protecting others.

We launched the mat during the annual Eid festival, when millions pray at mosques. The mats were handed out across Pakistan, in some of the country's largest mosques.

The design of the mat was in keeping with well-researched Islamic geometric patterns, which expanded within the space and created room for a calligraphed message in Urdu: "This distance is for your protection," serving as a reminder to not only the worshipper on the mat, but as an instruction to the next person. Printed in Islamic green, the material used was sustainable and low-cost, non-tearable paper, which could be easily rolled up.

A film was made to introduce the idea of the mat to worshippers all over the country, which was then disseminated through our channels. Additionally, the mats were distributed on Pakistan's largest e-commerce platform, and were also made available open-source for free to be downloaded and printed anywhere.

The mat design was not only immediately endorsed by the Council of Islamic Ideology of Pakistan - a massive influence on the religious community - but also promoted by members of government who had previously not been successful in implementing a successful social distancing strategy in mosques.

The open-source mat design - free for anyone anywhere to download, has already been downloaded in 7 countries.

The film was viewed more than 4 million times, and along with media impressions that went beyond 11 million and social engagements in excess of 13,000, led to a rise in brand love of 12 points.

In post-campaign research, the consumer's association of protection with Dettol had reached a whopping 98%.

The Social Distancing Prayer Mat resulted in tremendous positive PR for Dettol and played an active role in raising awareness for social distancing during the pandemic, helping save lives.