What if we could turn everyday objects made of paper and fabric into protection from mosquitoes by sealing in a repellent activated by touch and movement? Our client, Ananse, was intrigued. Could we invent an entirely new class of repellent – and even better --one made entirely of natural repellent ingredients? It had never been done.

To appeal to children who dislike sticky, smelly topical repellents, we’d make the products educational and fun to use at school and playtime. We tapped an author to write and illustrate a story that would bring the region’s rich mythology of Amazon warriors to life. To create an attractive collection, we produced a coloring book, repellent crayons and a repellent superhero’s cape for imaginative children. Activated by mere movement, the repellent sealed inside these objects would create a six-hour window of mosquito protection, extending up to five feet in diameter, and lasting three months.

Ananse spent a year developing the coating technology to seal in repellent to paper, fabric and crayons. During this time, we wrote “Amazon Warriors,” bringing a mythology of warriors, summoned to save the rain forest from devastation, to life.

Working with nonprofit IPAM, we first visited Tapara Miri in Pará, an isolated community of 1,896 people living in swampland teeming with mosquitoes. G1, a division of Globo TV, the country’s largest TV network, trekked 4,000 km with us—via aircraft, jeep and boat—to break the story.

Initially, villagers were suspicious of strangers bearing unexpected gifts. Our volunteers visited homes to provide a collection to every child. We filled the school with repellent books and crayons, arming teachers with new lessons and mosquito-fighting tools.

Today, there’s a welcome new sight: children wearing Ananse’s repellent superhero capes.

Collections are arriving to other villages; the story has spread to 30 countries worldwide.

Every major Brazilian media outlet has carried the story. Coverage has spilled to 30 countries, transforming Tapara Miri into a global testing ground for everyday objects that repel mosquitoes. 67,000+ earned media stories appeared within three weeks of our visit, generating 500 million impressions. 300 stories on social media were viewed and shared 4.5+ million times. A leading Brazil newspaper plans to apply Ananse’s repellent varnish on an initial production run of 500,000.

Amazon Warriors Safe Collection has been endorsed by pediatricians, IPAM, and the Brazilian Health Department, and added to curricula in Pará State. According to IPAM, 90% of Tapara Miri children are wearing the capes and reading the books weeks later.

There have been no new reports of malaria or yellow fever outbreaks in the village in the first month. IPAM will replenish kits every three months. Another 20,000 Collections are in transit to other Amazon villages.

A book has been a universal communications tool and culture-bearer in every society almost since the beginning of time. Now, a Brazilian company has invented a way for a book to serve as more than a literary tale for education and enjoyment, or historical record of our times. It’s turned books and other everyday things – like children’s toys –into objects that also serve to repel disease-transmitting mosquitoes. In countries like Brazil, where yellow fever, malaria and Zika pose public health crises, these new mosquito-fighting tools are critical forms of defense wherever vaccines are scarce and topical repellents are unaffordable.

Given alarming concern over the rising spread of yellow fever, malaria and the Zika virus, demand for vaccines, medicines and repellents among Brazil’s 200 million population has skyrocketed. However, for many Brazilians, these solutions aren’t available or affordable, especially outside metropolitan areas. In contrast, mosquito-repellent books, crayons and children’s costumes could become familiar items that any child could use, requiring little education. The idea was so simple, and yet so complex, no one had thought of it, until now.

Our PR-driven CSR campaign for Ananse would bring door-to-door aid to Brazilian families whose children most needed protection, but couldn’t get it. Teaming up with the nonprofit Amazon Research Institute (IPAM), we began by targeting villages in the Amazon rainforest where mosquito-borne diseases raged. Our strategy relied on going school-to-school and door-to-door with the new ‘collection’ – an effort which we’d amplify through Brazil’s leading media and social influencers, keen on solutions.

Yellow fever (YF), spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is the “Brazilian plague,” with a kill rate equal to Ebola’s. Brazil’s current YF outbreak (with 144 confirmed deaths) is the largest since the 1980s. Malaria cases have risen 35% in one year, with 2,000 infections. Children are at risk; 86% of malaria deaths globally occur under age five.

Brazil’s Health Ministry is hard-pressed to stop the spread. A vaccine exists for YF, but the sheer size of Brazil coupled with vaccine shortages mean that widespread inoculation in remote regions could take years.

Meanwhile, topical repellents are largely unattainable and unaffordable in the Amazon, a natural mosquito breeding ground containing half of the planet’s rainforests. We approached our client Ananse, a leading chemical company that develops high-tech coatings and sealants for consumer products, with an idea to develop a new form of mosquito protection to aid the country’s most vulnerable.