Lifebuoy: Help a Child Reach 5

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Also: Gondappa · #HelpAChildReach5 · Lifebuoy Social Mission

Unilever's Lifebuoy soap handwashing programme in India, launched with a 2013 online film about a father in Thesgora (Madhya Pradesh), a village with one of India's highest diarrhoea rates, who walks on his hands to the temple because his son has reached his fifth birthday. The film carried a call to share and donate; the brand ran handwashing-with-soap sessions in the village and later films for newborns and mothers-to-be (Chamki, 2016).

Years: 2013–now
Country: India
Topic: Hand hygiene
Asks people to: Start
Strategy: Simple instruction Testimonial
Channel: Events School Social (organic)
Audience: Parents
Rural families with young children; online audiences asked to share and donate.

Evidence

ExperimentalMixed

The film itself has only sponsor metrics (WARC: over 16 million views). The underlying Lifebuoy school-and-home handwashing programme was tested in a cluster RCT (Nicholson et al. 2014, 70 low-income Mumbai communities, 41 weeks, Unilever-funded and Unilever-authored): intervention 5-year-olds had 25% fewer diarrhoea episodes, 15% fewer acute respiratory infections and 27% fewer illness-related school absences, with reductions in whole families. That trial combined handwashing promotion with free soap and was not a test of the film. Conflict of interest: soap manufacturer ran and published the trial. An independent cluster RCT of Unilever's school-based 'School of 5' campaign in Bihar (Lewis 2018, LSHTM; 32 villages, blinded structured observation) found handwashing with soap at key moments of 26.6% vs 22.4% in control (difference +4.4 points, 95% CI -4.0 to 12.8): no evidence of a health-relevant effect, attributed to low campaign intensity and weak delivery.

Sponsor (who paid)

Hindustan Unilever / Unilever (Lifebuoy) Industry, funder and creator

Credits (who made it)

Lowe Lintas + Partners, Mumbai Creative, 2013-2016 source

Sources

Nicholson JA et al. An investigation of the effects of a hand washing intervention on health outcomes and school absence using a randomised trial in Indian urban communities. Trop Med Int Health 2014;19(3):284-92 evaluation · 2014 · DOI 10.1111/tmi.12254 · PMID 24382344
Help a child reach 5 (Ads of the World) archive · 2013
Lifebuoy: Help a Child Reach 5 (Shots) news · 2014
Lifebuoy Future Child - Chamki (Ads of the World) archive · 2016
Lewis HE, Greenland K, Curtis V, Schmidt WP. Effect of a School-Based Hygiene Behavior Change Campaign on Handwashing with Soap in Bihar, India: Cluster-Randomized Trial. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2018 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.4269/ajtmh.18-0187 · PMID 30105966

Research notes

Lowe Lintas credit fetched 2026-10-22 from Ads of the World ('Lowe, India') and Shots ('Lowe Lintas India', CD Amer Jaleel, director Amit Sharma, Chrome Pictures). A Cannes Lions 2014 listing (search snippet only) credits Lowe & Partners London; the 2014 Cannes 'Lifebuoy' entry is credited to Lowe Lintas + Partners Mumbai (snippet). The lead that Ogilvy Mumbai made this film is wrong; Ogilvy (OgilvyAction India) made Lifebuoy's separate 2013 'Roti Reminder' at the Kumbh Mela. Brand-funded work: evidence is from a sponsor-run trial of the programme, not the ad. WARC 16 million views figure from search snippet only. Evidence updated 2026-10-22: outcome changed from positive to mixed after adding Lewis 2018, an independent cluster RCT of the School of 5 campaign that found no meaningful effect on handwashing; same design strength as the sponsor-run Nicholson 2014 trial and closer to the campaign itself. Lewis 2018 added (openalex-deep queue; DOI checked on Crossref and PMID via NCBI esummary 2026-10-22).

Record cases/in-lifebuoy-help-a-child-reach-5.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign