Hygiene at the heart of our mission
It's not easy to 'feel good, look good and get more out of life', to quote our Vitality mission, when you’re stuck in the loo with acute diarrhoea. That’s one of the reasons why we have put hygiene at the heart of our new mission.
Without good hygiene, consumers are vulnerable to a wide range of infectious diseases that not only have the potential to severely undermine the quality of their lives, but even to end their lives prematurely. And the reality is that hygiene standards remain woefully low around the world, reflected in the high incidence of infectious intestinal diseases (IIDs), such as diarrhoea.
Developing countries
Although the IID problem is most severe in developing countries, where two million children die each year from diarrhoea, it is also a major issue in industrialised nations. In the UK, for example, it is estimated that one in five people succumb to IIDs annually, leading to around 35,000 hospital admissions and more than 30 deaths. Not to mention the physical and social discomfort that millions of others suffer with these types of disease.
The risks are likely to intensify as populations age and the incidence of immuno-deficient diseases such as AIDS rises, more people will be vulnerable to the consequences of poor hygiene. Infectious diseases are also hopping around the world quicker than before due to globalisation. In some cases, they can't be treated with antibiotics as they’re viral; others are bacterial but resistant to antibiotics.
New pathogens – agents that can cause disease – are also constantly appearing. Since the 1970s, at least one new pathogen has been recorded each year. Good hygiene is often the only way to avoid many pathogens and their consequences.
Make more use of soap
One of the main stumbling blocks is that most people do not use one of the world’s most basic and widely available home hygiene products – the humble bar of soap. Hands are a superhighway for transmitting germs, but most people don’t wash their hands with soap and water at key times. In the UK, for example, only 30% of people wash their hands after going to the toilet and only 43% after changing a nappy. If everyone washed their hands properly, we could halve the number of children who die from diarrhoeal diseases and possibly cut the number of upper respiratory tract diseases by a third.
So what’s Unilever doing?
We communicate hygiene issues to consumers is playing a vital role in the success of our brands. There’s a lot we can learn from the social and psychological sciences. But we also need to look carefully at the types of products we use and the delivery mechanisms. For example, a gel might be more appropriate than a bar of soap in regions where there is little running water. With our strong heritage in hygiene and branding combined with our deep consumer insights, we are in a unique position to bring Vitality to life in a powerful way.
Lifebuoy
A campaign to reduce the incidence of potentially fatal diarrhoeal diseases in India has reached 18,000 villages, with a combined population of more than 70 million.
Currently, a child succumbs to diarrhoea every second in India. But if everyone washed their hands with soap at key times in the day, notably after going to the toilet and before meals, the number of diarrhoeal-related deaths could be cut by 47%.
To bring this message to life, Lifebuoy teams have visited schools and village elders in states with the highest incidence of diarrhoea. Using ‘glo-germ’ kits, which use a special powder to show that germs remain on your hands unless you use soap and water, they have undermined the myth that hands that are visibly clean are ‘safe clean’, supported by educational materials.
