Squeaky clean

WORDS Chantel Hans

A South African advertising agency have designed a soap with a toy inside to incentivise kids to wash properly. VISI is not alone in loving ingenious solutions that add an element of fun to the dreary everyday – the concept also won two Cannes Silver Lions.

Hope Soap is the brainchild of Y&R Cape Town, which collaborated with Safety Lab and Blikkiesdorp4Hope – two NGOs seeking to promote hygiene among the children of Blikkiesdorp, an informal settlement in the Western Cape. The end product aims to reduce preventable diseases such as typhoid, diarrhea, cholera and pneumonia caused by poor sanitation.

It is a well-known fact that by simply washing your hands you can significantly decrease the chance of spreading infection and getting diseases; however the challenge was not to get the soap to the children, but rather to encourage them to use it. Hope Soap thus comes in a lovely array of translucent colours with a toy (cars for boys and dolls or Hello Kitty faces for girls) embedded inside, which can only be reached with regular washing as the children wear down the soap.

According to the campaign stats, improved hygiene levels have led to a 70% decrease in common illnesses and a 75% decrease in respiratory infections among kids in the community. It just goes to show how a simple, well-executed idea can have positive, long-term effects!