Honours for Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna programme
Lifebuoy is the first brand to ever be honored by the Indian postal department with a special Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna postal cover, released to mark World Health Day on 7 April 2006 by the Indian postal department which released a special Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna postal cover.
About Lifebouy
In 1930’s Uniliver started the “Clean Hands help guard Health” campaign in US to encourage consumers to make their hands germ-free by using lifebuoy. Ever since its launch it had strong association with well-being and health. The soap was a carbolic soap and was quite popular till the early 1990’s. Thereby it faced competition from its counter parts like Nirma bath soap which where soft and were started to be sold at half its price. Lifebuoy experienced a negative growth of 5% in the same year. Women preferred the newer, softer and more fragrant soaps. In 2001, Lifebuoy market share fell to 12.5% from 15.4% as in 1997
To cope up with the same changes were brought in the soap in the formulation, size, shape, weight and packaging of the soap. It was changed from hard carbolic soap to softer soap with refreshing fragrance. This helped to appeal women
About Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna
In India, Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna programme clearly demonstrates this commitment to purposeful action towards cleaner, healthier and more hygienic communities. Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna programme 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. To date, Swasthya Chetna has touched the lives of 70 million Indians across 18,000 villages, with its unique communication tools like flip chart stories, glow germ demonstrations, germ mask games, health rallies/message stenciling and other community activities. In 2006, the programme is being extended to an additional 10,000 villages.
Assignment 1. Do you think that LSC Program met a reasonable success? If yes, what led to change in the behavior of the target group?
Yes, I think that LSC Program met a reasonable success. Lifebuoy's “Swasthya Chetna” (LSC) was a five-year health and hygiene education program initiated by Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), the Indian arm of the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) major, Unilever. The program spread awareness about germs and their adverse effects on health, and how proper 'health and hygiene’ practices, such as bathing and washing hands with soap could prevent diseases like diarrhea. HLL sought to grow the Lifebuoy brand in India by attracting those consumers who never used soap. In the process, the company sought to bring about a behavioral change by convincing people to use soaps more frequently, thus creating more users for its brand.
In India, around 600,000 children die every year on account of diarrhea. Diseases like diarrhea also lead to loss of workdays that directly affect labor productivity in rural India. However diarrhea can be prevented by adapting to practices like washing hands regularly. In this program HLL tried to make people understand the difference between visibly clean and being actually clean.
LSC targeted rural people and encouraged them to practiced good personnel hygiene. Key communication was the presence of germs and how they are responsible for causing diseases. LSC was launched as a multiphase interactive program. The LSC team consisting of HDF and HDA covered about 24 villages in a month. The primary audience was children. They targeted children as they were the most influential candidates within a family is what a HLL thought of. Father they also met health workers and schoolteachers. In second phase they got badge and certificates which father encouraged students for going for the same. In3rd Phase they targeted women of the houses and conducted sessions for them. Finally in the last session they organized health clubs within communities. These repeated visits also help people from villages to understand and believe their product which made the entire program a success.
2. What is your plan for improving Lifebuoy Sales?
* Promotion of Lifebuoy Liquid Hand washes in urban areas. As for lifebuoy talks about hygiene, so the sophisticated society believes more in liquid hand wash rather than soap. So they can target the urban mass by the same * Lifebuoy competitions should be held at different levels (village, district, state etc…) where hygiene related questions should be asked which are generally made aware to people through the LSC program. This will encourage them more to participate in LSC program and thereby understand the advantage of Lifebuoy. * The lifebuoy 10-seconds germ cleaning add and awareness should be made more popular among the rural masses. This will make them realize Lifebuoy not only values health but also time
3. How do you measure the effectiveness of a social program?
Measure the effectiveness of social programs can be carried out through qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative measurements of social programs involve community satisfaction and overall appeal, often measured through surveys or questionnaires. Quantitative measurements of social programs involve numerical values, such as income and expenses as found in annual reports. The major impact generally is on sales of the product for which social awareness is created. As the case of Lifebuoy we know that around 2001 Lifebuoy market share dropped drastically. However LSC programme started around 2002 has made lifebuoy popular among the rural masses which have made a direct impact on the sales that grew by 20% in 2004-05. Thus we can understand that a social program can be measured on the basis of impact it has created on the mass.
