HUL's Lifebuoy campaign goes viral on net

The 'Help a child reach 5' campaign has already got 1.5 million views on YouTube since its release

After surprising everyone with the Lifebuoy's Kumbha campaign few weeks ago, the latest campaign from HUL(Hindustan Unilever Ltd ) has gone viral on the net and netizens are going gaga over it on multiple social networking websites. Some claiming it to be one of the best non commercial ad films created in India.  

Lifebuoy's hand wash campaign ―Help a child reach 5― has already garnered close to 1.5 million views on YouTube since its release. HUL's advertising campaign have a legacy to touch the consumer directly and this one seems to have tugged at the heartstrings of people.

The film is set in a village and starts with a small boy (Muthu) spotting handprints in the mud outside his house.

Curious, he sets out to follow the trail. He then spots his father who is walking on his hands across the town. He begins to walk along and very soon other villagers join them. His father continues his journey across the fields with the size of the procession increasing with musicians too walking along.

A young lady, who seems like a tourist from the city, sees the procession from a bus and is intrigued. She joins them, trying to find out what is happening. The procession climbs on top of a hill, the man still walking on his hands over the rocky terrain. Finally, they reach their destination - a temple. The man pays his respects to God before finally putting his feet on the ground. He explains to the priest that his son Muthu has turned five.

The young lady asks the bystander what the big deal about turning five was. The bystander explains that Muthu is the man’s only child to have survived till the age of five.

The film ends with announcing: “Every year two million children under the age of 5 die of infections like diarrhoea and pneumonia. A lot of deaths can be prevented by the simple act of washing hands with soap. Lifebuoy has reached 130 million people across the world, to teach them healthy hand washing habits. We now take our life saving mission to Thesgora, a village in India with one of the highest rates of diarrhoea. Help us celebrate the fifth birthday of every single child in Thesgora by 2015. Take the pledge on facebook.com/lifebuoy and save lives.”

The campaign has been created by Lowe Lintas &  Partners and the creative team included ad guru & film director R. Balki ,  Amer Jaleel,  Sagar Kapoor,  Garima Khandelwal.
 
Samir Singh, Global Brand VP, Lifebuoy said, “Our goal is to change the hand washing behaviours of a billion people by 2015. We wanted to tell the world the Lifebuoy story in a deeply emotional way. Our brief was to translate the statistic of ‘two million children still die in the world before the age of five due to preventable infections like diarrhoea and pneumonia’ into something real, personal and powerful. And through this film, that’s just what’s been done.”