Social Media Campaign Review: How UNICEF's #Poo2Loo Campaign is Addressing The Issue of Open Defecation

Pushed out from the scope of consciousness there lies a world which is as real as the commercials we see on the television, and as real as Louis Vuitton bags that so many of you wants to own or wish to gift to your better half, someday; in fact the world is more real than that.

Running in to draw in the first month of its campaign, UNICEF India's digital-led ‘Take Poo to the Loo’, has garnered a good deal of interest on social media, arguably, more so since Sachin Tendulkar has avowed to bring down the percentage of open defecation in India.

In this review, I'll try to analyze the effectiveness of the campaign.

Objective

The objective of the campaign is to bring down the instances open defecation by creating awareness among youth of the problem and "an active layer of advocates" among them to speak up and take the message forward.

Execution

To disseminate its message far and wide, UNICEF has commissioned Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and has also created an independent Poo2Loo website where its various social media activities converge. The UN agency has also created a custom hashtag (#poo2loo) to amplify the message amongst socially aware people.

 Positives

The campaign has been nicely designed and each platform has been utilized as per its merit. On Facebook, UNICEF has engaged its fans and shared the images of the young activists pledged to help people by telling them the health risk defecating in open expose them to.

The design of Facebook posts is well synced with the design of the websites and videos, which we will see towards the end of this section.

It has struck a chord with Indian Twitteratis and commoners on twitter. People are not just talking about it on twitter and retweeting the tweets, but they acting upon the message as well. The third tweet posted below is an example of growing awareness and activism.

Join hands with @UNICEF & fight for better #sanitation in #India. Pledge to take @poo2loo: http://t.co/596OFRUV69 pic.twitter.com/s7DRNCJxSP

— Halabol Campaigns (@CampaignsHB) November 29, 2013

RT @poo2loo: If we don’t act today this could very well be the future. Take the pledge now! http://t.co/7Khndl4KVV #poo2loo http://t.co/dgq…

— Mohit Hira (@mohitoz) November 30, 2013

Over 900 pledges till now!Get your friends to pledge too! Together,we can end the problem. Take #Poo2Loo and pledge http://t.co/sp7Q7rP4J6

— Take Poo To The Loo (@poo2loo) December 1, 2013

A couple of custom-made videos hosted on YouTube and shared on other social media are getting some views on social media. Graphically they are coherent with other messages designed for Facebook and twitter.

Scope for Improvement

Design-wise there is little to change in the campaign, and the overall concept of the campaign is quite impressive as well, but due to lack of creative content, the content units (tweet, videos, or FB posts) failed to get as far as it should have.

UNICEF needs to think creatively about each content unit and it should drive the message in a way that people do not only feel sorry for the state of affair but feel compelled to share the content, possibly making the project (or some of its content units) go viral. The team also needs to think of more ways to disseminate the message forward.

Conclusion

Some limitations aside, the campaign has been nicely done, and I hope that UNICEF's Poo2Loo campaign generate enough interest to help achieve the objective of this noble cause.