PR CAMPAIGN

Individual Campaign Analysis



Individual Campaign Analysis

Introduction

The report shows the PR campaign of Lifebuoy soap in Ghana. We have chosen this country because of the unhygienic environment in which the people of Ghana are living. The Ghana hand washing program made contamination visible to the ordinary Ghanaian for the first time, effectively communicating a hygiene message using commercial marketing techniques.

Background

In Ghana, diarrhea accounts for 25 percent of all deaths in children under five and is among the top three reported causes of morbidity. Children under five typically have three-five episodes of diarrhea and a similar number of respiratory infections a year. Nine million episodes of disease could be prevented each year by washing hands with soap. Ghanaians use soap, and they buy a lot of it. However, the soap is almost all used for cleaning clothes, washing dishes and bathing (Kaltenthaler,1996, pp. 35).

In a baseline study, 75 percent of mothers claimed to wash hands with soap after toilet use, but structured observation showed that only 3 percent did so, while 32 percent washed their hands with water only. Mothers who did wash hands with soap generally did so because it felt good to remove dirty matter from hands, it was refreshing, it was a way of caring for children and it could enhance their social status.

The Ghana Public-Private Partnership to Promote Hand washing with soap crafted a high-impact communication strategy with the slogan “For Truly Clean Hands, Always Wash with Soap.” The intensive phase of the program's communication activities was carried out in the period 2004-06. During this phase, the program used three routes to bring the hand washing with soap message to the target audiences - mothers and caregivers of children under five years and children in basic school, ages 6-15 years, across the whole country. The routes included mass media, direct consumer contact and a district-level program through schools, health centers and communities. The communication strategy also included a public relations and advocacy component that targeted policy makers and opinion leaders and promoted the provision of hand washing infrastructure in schools and public latrines (WHO, 2008).

The Global Public-Private Partnership to Promote Hand washing

Hand washing with soap may be an old idea, but it is far from universally practiced. Combining the expertise and resources of the soap industry with the facilities and resources of governments to promote hand washing with soap is one obvious solution. While governments and development agencies want to combat disease and poverty, industry is interested in expanding its market.

The World Bank and the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the Academy for Educational Development (AED) and the private sector, in collaboration with USAID, UNICEF, and the Bank-Netherlands Water Partnership are developing a global initiative aimed at promoting the use of hand washing with soap in developing countries. Work has started in Ghana and India. The results are being monitored and the lessons documented and disseminated. The work is now expanding to four other countries, ...