By :Harsha Chotrani

PresentationOn

Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna

Rural Hygiene Education

INTRODUCTION• It is one of the largest sustainable direct contact programmes

for hygiene education in the world.• Started in 2002 , the aim of the programme is to create

awareness about disease causing germs and to promote basic hygiene practices like washing hands with soap as a preventive measure.

• With a focus on rural communities, the programme targets school children, women, and community elders.

• It involves a range of engaging activities, including quizzes, games, songs, and the popular 'GLO-GERM' demonstration kit, with which one can see the germs on the hands, even after they've been rinsed with only water.

Health Check- up

Glow Germ Demo

Healthy Family

Health Check- up

Results2002-2006

Cum. 2007

No of villages contacted

27800 40000

No. of people contacted (mn)

80 105

Source: icra.org.

CHARACTERISTICS• The five-year campaign aims to help educate 200m people

(20% of the population) about basic hygiene habits, including washing hands with soap.

• Main aim is to challenge the misconception that 'visibly clean‘ is 'hygienically clean'.

• The program started with a Health Development Facilitator (HDF) and an assistant initiating contact and interacting with schoolchildren and influencers of the community like village community representatives, medical practitioners, school teachers, etc. 

• To help people on low incomes afford to buy soap, 18-gram bar of Lifebuoy soap was introduced, enough for one person to wash their hands once a day for 10 weeks.

• Health care in Rural India is given importance due to its direct impact on labor productivity, and in turn, loss of income. Also, for decades, Lifebuoy has been synonymous with soap in rural India. All these factors led to “Swasthya Chetna”!

• Lifebuoy also supports the Global Hand washing day on October 15, 2008

BUSINESS MODEL

• The Swasthya Chetna program business model was especially characteristic because its marketing and distribution local channels and support from different agents, like NGOs and Health Development Facilitators (HDF).

• They also change the packing characteristics. • To get the prices as low as possible they rethought the entire

cost structure. Anything that did not add value in the production, distribution and sales process was taken out .

• HDF used a number of tools like a pictorial story in a flip chart format, a "Glowgerm demonstration“.

• The process culminated into recruitment of children and parents as volunteers to start up health clubs that, in turn, organize events such as community bathing at the pond.

• Engage local actors were also definitive to help in the process, as they have the influence to get the people involved in Unilever’s program.

Diarrhoea – Kills a child every 10 secs - 33% (1 mn) of these deaths are in India

LSHTM* Study - Washing hands with soap and water reduces diarrhoeal diseases by 47%

Business objective – To increase soap consumption in rural India

Lifebuoy - India’s leading health soap brand - Role in propagating health & hygiene awareness in villages

* London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The Challenge in rural India:

1. Lack of awareness about disease causing germs

2. Need for repeated contacts to drive behavior change

3. Lack of media reach

SWASTYA CHETNA

LSC – THE MODEL

* Expect to complete by end 2007

SUCCESS• It started with 8 Indian states, and covered more than 70 million

people by the end of 2004!• Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna hygiene education campaign

reached 120 million people in nearly 51 000 villages in India over the period 2002–2008 .

• 2003-04: sales grew by 20% “directly attributable growth”• 2005: grew by 10%• End of 2005: reached 86 million rural consumers• 30% increase in awareness of germs, 20% in understanding

the association between germs and diseases, user base grew by 33%.

• Washing with soap has become a kind of ritual” → the behavioral change has successfully happened

• “Covering 130 million people in 30,000 villages since 2002, the Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna programme has made its mark as the single largest private hygiene education project in the world ” - lifebuoy.com

• current market share: 21%• sales growing faster than the market• User awareness has increased as per the “before & after” tests

conducted• This model is also being replicated in other countries like

Bangladesh.

SYNERGISINGBENEFITS

Rational: Increasing Soap Consumption

Social: Healthy Community

Emotional:Healthy Living

- Lifebuoy Leaves Its Stamp On India

• Government Recognition On the occasion of World Health day, on April 7th, 2006 – Postal Department released special Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna Postal cover

Source : Case study Of CBS

Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna

THANK YOU …Swasthya Chetna is not about philanthropy. It's a marketing

program with social benefits.

We recognize that the health of our business is totally

interconnected with the health of the communities we serve and if

we are to grow sales of our brand, we have to increase the

number of people who use soap."

- Harpreet Singh, Senior Product Manager for Lifebuoy, Hindustan Lever Ltd, in 2005