The Campaign

The Washable Book is a low-tech innovation that transforms reading into physical learning, to inspire behavioral change. The book’s characters reach their colorful futures only by having their dirty hands physically washed on the pages. The repeated action helps the children make the connection between hand washing and reaching their own future goals. The book leverages color watermark printing, a new technology printed in 3 layers: when the character’s dirty hand on the top layer is exposed to water and soap, the special white ink of the middle layer becomes transparent, allowing the colorful future image of the character on the bottom layer to show through. Since it doesn't require batteries or expensive hardware, the book is reusable once it dries out - allowing many more children to learn that hand-washing leads to healthier futures.

Execution

As the first phase, 500 books were published in December 2017 to be gifted into the hands of children at elementary schools in rural areas of Cambodia - together with the germicidal soap. We partnered with two NGOs, 'SHARE' and 'Japan Philanthropic Association', to teach children the importance of hand washing with the Washable Book at schools and even in their own homes.

Over 1.5 billion media impressions in 3 weeks resulted in 18 times more bars of soap being gifted than projected. And reprinting is in progress for roll-out to other developing countries. But most importantly, the Washable Book is changing children’s futures, by changing their behavior.

The Situation

This book aims to expand the awareness of the client's CSR program through media appearances and to promote participation in the program from the general public. So to gather the most attention, we introduced a transforming experience which is fresh and unique enough to ignite interest from media and regular people alike.

The Strategy

In many developing countries where illiteracy is a common problem and digital infrastructure is still limited, hand-washing is simply not a part of the culture. So we needed an intuitive, low-tech educational way to cross language, literacy and cultural barriers in order to positively change children's hand-washing behavior. We found it in a storybook where physically washing the pages is the only way to truly enjoy the story. Going beyond simple hygiene education, children are provided with first-hand experience of hand-washing through the story and how that action could lead to achieving and expanding their own future possibilities.