Campaign of the Week

Contagious I/O

7 April 2020

Dettol generates 50bn views with TikTok #HandWashChallenge 

Disinfectant brand stresses the importance of hand washing during the coronavirus pandemic, generates 48.3bn views on TikTok

Dettol India created a TikTok challenge to emphasise how hand washing helps to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

The brand, which makes household cleaning and disinfecting products, aims to get more people washing their hands more frequently in India.

To participate in the #HandWashChallenge, people must choose the challenge from the discover page on TikTok’s platform. They then wait for Dettol’s ‘handwashing song’ to begin before performing signature dance moves that incorporate Dettol’s hand washing instructions, which appear at the top-right corner of the screen.

The challenge also comes with a green Dettol-branded filter. 

Once completed, people are encouraged to share the video with friends using the campaign hashtag while tagging Dettol.

The campaign involved some of TikTok’s biggest influencers in India, including Riyaz Aly, Avneet Kaur, Nisha Guragain, Suraj Pal Singh and Urvashi Rautela who have a combined 90+ million followers.

Results / The campaign launched on March 14 and by March 18 was reported to have amassed nine billion views across the platform, doubling views less than a week later. At the time of writing, the hundreds of thousands of videos created by the campaign had generated 48.3 billion views, according to the brand’s TikTok page.

Contagious Insight 

Either first, or last / Dettol India has responded quickly with a public-health campaign that communicates a vital message in a way that is fun and encourages participation and, at the same time reminds people of its brand at a time when personal hygiene products are likely to move top of mind for vast numbers of people.

TikTok on the rise / TikTok has seen a meteoric rise in usage, with mobile market data provider App Annie revealing in its State of Mobile 2020 report that global time spent on TikTok grew 210% from 2018 and 2019. The report also found that TikTok had the fourth-highest number of downloads worldwide and the sixth-largest in terms of global active users in 2019.

TikTok’s popularity has accelerated particularly quickly in India. The app currently has 200 million users in the country, and TikTok’s head of operations in India Nikhil Gandhi recently told the Financial Times that the platform’s users were likely to increase by at least 50% in 2020. This was before the country had gone into a complete nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease, and the platform’s users are likely to increase even more as a result of people’s isolation (social media usage has skyrocketed during the pandemic).

Dettol’s campaign shows how brands using the platform can reach large audiences, especially among younger demographics. A Business of Apps article reports that over 60% of TikTok’s audience are teenagers and young adults aged between the ages of 15 and 25. Last year, Contagious reported on a similar TikTok challenge campaign from the Japanese Red Cross Society that developed a fun dance routine to teach people the steps to perform CPR. The viral campaign also had impressive results with 19 million views and 1.1 billion media impressions.

This was first published on Contagious I/O, our online intelligence tool. To find out more click here.

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