Savlon's #HandwashLegends made handwashing cool for India’s youth

Getting kids to follow healthy habits is no easy task and is often met with resistance. So, to overcome this challenge and promote the habit of washing hands with soap, Savlon Swasth India Mission‘s ingenious and refreshing new campaign tapped into the kids’ growing enthusiasm for hip hop. Titled ‘Handwash Legend’, the campaign turned the well-known gesture of rappers ‘rubbing their hands together’ into a handwashing move. Cleverly merging entertainment with handwashing, Savlon Swasth India Mission partnered with Indian rap artist and hip-hop star Emiway Bantai and the kids from The Dharavi Dream Project, a community that discovers and mentors under-resourced hip-hop talent, for the song ‘Haath Dhona Cool Hai’ (Handwashing is cool). The catchy track emphasizes the importance of washing hands with soap and encourages kids to become ‘Handwash Legends’ by adopting good hand hygiene practices.

 ITC’s Savlon Swasth India Mission has been leading the charge in fostering behavioural shifts towards hand hygiene through inventive approaches and programs. Preventable illnesses cause significant economic strains on our nation, and consistent handwashing stands out as one of the easiest and most powerful methods to curtail disease transmission. With Handwash Legend, they aim to instill the habit of proper hand hygiene among kids and enthusiasts of hip-hop by using their love for the genre.

Conceptualized by Ogilvy India, the campaign features, a video post thanking Emiway Bantai for promoting handwashing, the ‘Haath Dhona Cool Hai’ music video and the Handwash Legend Hook Step Challenge. The campaign leverages the growing scene of Hip Hop in India and highlights to kids that handwashing is cool.

Sameer Satpathy, Divisional Chief Executive, Personal Care Products Business, ITC Limited, said, “Inspiring today’s generation towards any habit change is only successful if it is immersed in cultural relevance. Hip-hop is a genre that today’s youth identify with, as it allows for self-expression. ITC Savlon Swasth India Mission’s #HandwashLegends skilfully turned the popular hip-hop move, to make it an interesting and relatable symbol of handwashing. The success of this campaign underscores our commitment to continue the effort of inculcating the habit of handwashing among today’s youth, to build a healthier future for them.”

 Harshad Rajadhyaksha and Kainaz Karmakar, Chief Creative Officers, Ogilvy India commented, “Hacking culture makes for some of the most interesting ideas. This is one of them. The iconic Hip Hop move hacked to point out that it actually resembles hand-washing washing is funny and endearing. Our Savlon teams are always looking for new ways to promote the idea of using soap to kill germs. Over a hundred diseases can be prevented by this simple habit, which needs to be continuously reiterated. The way to inculcate the habit is to start with the young ones. They may not be interested in a lecture about hand hygiene but they are deeply interested in Hip Hop. Marrying the two has led to this campaign.”

 Emiway Bantai, who also penned the song, said, "I am thrilled that Savlon Swasth India Mission identified and hacked such a popular movement in hip-hop culture to promote handwashing, something completely unheard of! With hip-hop being very popular among today’s youth, this hack to inspire a habit of handwashing is truly unique and relatable.  I’m proud to be part of a campaign, to not only influence with my music but also leverage hip-hop and its culture to drive this change in creating future #HandwashLegends.”

 The success of #HandwashLegends and its resonance with youth was evident through the positive response generated by audiences – user generated content created on India’s largest short video platform, Josh, marked a total duration of 26 hours with a watch time of ~1 million hours.

Savlon Swasth India Mission since its inception has been hosting one of the largest school education programs on inculcating the habit of hand hygiene in India. With more than 37000 schools across India with a reach of over 10 million children, the program has now included the #HandwashLegend anthem as part of its workshop to further encourage handwashing among children.