More Than a Toilet: Havas London for Water.org

 

Harpic has launched its ‘More than a toilet’ campaign to support Water.org in its effort to end the water and sanitation crisis around the world. They will be raising awareness and funds to support the international non-profit co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White in time for World Toilet Day on Monday 19th November 2018. In addition, their parent company, RB, has donated $1 million to Water.org’s efforts to change lives.

The campaign, created by Havas London with PR support from sister agency, Cake, aims to bring to light the exceedingly high number of people in India and other developing countries living without access to basic sanitation and highlight the alarming effect this has on people’s health, safety and education.

To launch, Harpic will announce that the toilets at the summit will not be available to use, before premiering their campaign film. The stunt seeks to bring attention to the reality billions of people face and create a moment in which attendees realize that something we do every day looks very different for many people around the world.
Figures by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and International Telecommunications Union reveal that there are more people in the world with access to a mobile phone than a toilet. 1 in 3, that’s 2.3 billion people, do not have access to a toilet, with a staggering 892 million people defecating in the open; putting their health and safety at risk.

For billions of people, not having access to a toilet can be incredibly dangerous and comes with many risks, with nearly 1 million people being killed by water, sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases each year.

Mong, a mother in Cambodia, describes life before Water.org enabled her family to install a toilet at home: “Our daughters were always at risk of unwanted attacks at night, and my kids could get bit by snakes when they walked to find water or defecate. It scared them, and me.”

Women living without access to a toilet are twice as likely to experience sexual violence when defecating in the open, and along with their children, can spend hours each day finding a place to go. Time that could be spent at school and work.

Harpic, the leading toilet cleaner in India, are campaigning to end the water and sanitation crisis by encouraging the public to join the movement, contribute and donate at https://water.org/morethanatoilet/ to fund a toilet and change a life.

Jade Andrews

Copywriter — Havas London

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Masha Shukkore

Director artístico — Havas London

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Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.

RB is one of our biggest global clients at Havas.  When RB advised us of their partnership with Water.org, we happily took this project on as a pro bono project. The opportunity to work with RB and Water.org on a project that directly affects the lives of millions of people is the type of brief that makes you feel proud about the work that you do. 

Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about?

The campaign was about raising awareness of the fact 1 in 3 people worldwide don’t have access to a toilet and much more (safety/education/health etc) and so the campaign #morethanatoilet was born. We wanted people to really know what it felt like when this basic human right was taken away and get people to understand that for millions this is their reality.  

Tell us about the creative brief, what did it ask?

Get people to care about toilets. This was the crux of the brief given the audience we needed to generate awareness with and donations from largely takes them for granted. We had to strike the balance between being provocative, yet empathetic. We were asked to avoid the trappings of potty humour as this is trodden territory the client wanted to steer clear of.

Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?

Initially the insight came from a staggering fact that 1 in 3 people are without toilet access, but as we started to look into how not having toilet access affected people, we were shocked to find out that it actually starts to change quality of life in many different and unexpected ways. The fact that a toilet can literally change a child’s education and access to a toilet can mean women aren’t being subjected to sexual violence, meant a toilet really did mean a whole lot more than just a toilet. 

Can you share with us any alternative ideas (if any) for this campaign? Why was this idea chosen?  

Of course there were many ideas on the table for this campaign, the client and us found it hard to drop a fair few but eventually budgets and the global appeal helped us focus. 

How did the client initially react to this idea?

The client loved this idea from the get go. The trouble was, we had more than one idea on the table, so for a while we were trying to split the campaign into 3 phases, to keep a hold of all the great ideas. It took months for us to narrow it down to one simple, but effective idea.

What was the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development.

Given the campaign was going to be global (in markets where open defecation is the norm) we had to be very sensitive in the creative. We were conscious throughout that Water.org is a charity that empowers people to better their own situations.  In this case allow them to fund their own toilets,  so an idea too emotionally charged wasn’t going to work because it would have end up being patronising. That is why we decided this idea needed to have a light hearted tone that bordered on comedic, to help us be harder hitting with the realities.

What did you enjoy most about seeing this campaign through? Did you learn anything new from the experience?

The best thing was seeing the real life reactions of the people being denied access to a toilet. Our steward was a great improviser, speaking to people off the cuff and at times unscripted in order to react to what people were saying in real time. It could have gone either way, but it was just incredible to watch it all the ‘first world reactions’ unfold. He was saying the most ludicrous things to people, I still don’t know how he didn’t crack. We had so much great footage in the end, it was hard to cut down.

Where do you see this campaign going in the future?

The campaign has huge potential to continue as it was only half way through the creative development that new insights and staggering facts were discovered. We had many ideas that worked with this film and a very exciting idea was also developed as stage 2 of this campaign, which was on the table until very late stages of this campaign so watch this space it may just make a reappearance.