research in use
The plan/idea WaterAid Bangladesh’s communications unit planned to disseminate main findings of serious researches in simple, communicable and digestible language. Side by side, we decided to put some key messages (doable action points) as a way out of the situations that the research findings indicate. We planned to adopt product/content marketing approach of communications for this where the original report will be mentioned as reference as a download link and QR code. This will publicise the research itself to the wider audience.
The content Three of the contents we used have been extracted from the “Bangladesh National Hygiene Baseline Survey 2014” and one from “Faecal Contamination of Commuters’ Hands in Public Places in Dhaka City 2014”. Both of the researches have been carried out by icddr,b with inputs from WaterAid. We developed the contents in Bangla with strong visuals in an engaging tone. They key findings were presented in form of infographic expressed in simple language like a product advertisement. The copy was then checked with the research team to make sure that we’re not wrongly communicating the things. This took a number of back and forth to reach a point of agreement. It was worth spending the time as the final product came out of this process found to be simple, clearly understandable, engaging yet scientifically correct. All the messages end up with promoting hand washing with soap.
The platform We have chosen a national daily that has both print and online publication. We picked Prothom Alo (www.prothom-alo.com), the highest circulated daily in Bangladesh. Its readership is around three million per day; over half a million buy the print edition. As per Google ranking – its website is accessed from 210 countries and the highest hit Bangla website of the world. We have published messages in the form of ad in the daily Prothom Alo at the bottom part of page 5. The advert was available online the same day and is still accessible online at its archive. A total of four ads have been published in four consecutive days starting from 19 Nov ’14, the world toilet day. The contents are available in following pages with an English version (translated just to communicate internally, not scientifically copy-edited or checked). Next to creative that has been published there is an online link.
Ad 1: availability of soap and water around toilet
Newspaper insertions published on 19 Nov 2014
English translation of the ad
Weblink: http://epaper.prothom-alo.com/view/dhaka/2014-11-19/5
Ad 2: hand hygiene of mothers
Newspaper insertions published on 20 Nov 2014
English translation of the ad
Weblink: http://epaper.prothom-alo.com/view/dhaka/2014-11-20/5
Ad 3: hand and cleanliness of children
Newspaper insertions published on 21 Nov 2014
English translation of the ad
Weblink: http://epaper.prothom-alo.com/view/dhaka/2014-11-21/5
Ad 4: hand hygiene of commuters
Newspaper insertions published on 22 Nov 2014
English translation of the ad
Weblink: http://epaper.prothom-alo.com/view/dhaka/2014-11-22/5
The impact As soon as the newspaper advertisement came out we started receiving a number of media and public queries. Also it has successfully drawn attention of the actors within and beyond the sector and we got numerous communications in this regards. The ads were shared through social media channels as well that has quite a good number of hits. The post insights (engagement) of each post on the day they went live are as follows (drawn from official Facebook page of WaterAid Bangladesh): Post 1: availability of soap and water around toilet
Post 2: hand hygiene of mothers
Post 3: hand and cleanliness of children
Post 4: hand hygiene of commuters
After the success of this simple and straight infographics WaterAid Bangladesh is considering to share them in other public spheres.
All the infographics in high res are available to download in the following link:
https://app.box.com/s/uwjigrzwzieb9xsrrrct