STUPID/SMART
The Banger Blog · a Stupid/Smart breakdown
Classic · 2022

Lesso Lessons

Roto + Kenya Ministry of Health · Ogilvy Africa

From Ogilvy Africa.

The insight

Public health messaging in rural Kenya has to reach women who are not reading posters, watching television or online.

The idea

Print the health guidance into the lesso, the printed wrap cloth women already wear and carry every day.

The Stupid/Smart of it

Stupid: Putting your entire media budget into fabric, with no way to measure impressions.

Smart: Using clothing as a health leaflet sounds impractical, until you notice the lesso already carries printed proverbs and slogans by tradition.

Why it works

The lesso already had a centuries-old convention of carrying written messages, so the format was borrowed, not invented.

The medium is worn, washed and re-worn for years, so one distribution is a decade of exposure.

The magic

Noticing the lesso already carries printed proverbs by tradition, so the format is borrowed rather than imposed.

Idea-poweredIt works when you describe it out loud. You could brief this. Survives paraphrase.

Results

2 Goldplus a Silver at the Loeries
CannesGold Lion
D&ADYellow Pencil

Recognition

Loeries Africa & Middle East 2022: two Gold and one Silver.
Cannes Lions 2022: Gold Lion. D&AD 2022: Yellow Pencil. Also recognised at the London International Awards.
Straight talk: I originally listed this as a Loeries Grand Prix. It was not — it took two Golds and a Silver. Corrected here.

Who made it

Client: Roto Tanks, with the Ministry of Health Kenya
Agency: Ogilvy Africa, via the Ogilvy Give programme
The work: postnatal and child-nutrition guidance printed into the lesso, the patterned cloth Kenyan women already use to carry babies on their backs
Distribution: Roto's existing delivery network, handed out at health awareness drives run by healthcare professionals
Audience: young mothers in rural East Africa, targeting malnutrition in children under two

The way in

The devices behind this one, from our library of ways in:

Point at something that already looks like youActually do it, don't fake it

Sources: Ogilvy, Lesso Lessons · Ogilvy Africa case page · Aptantech, Loeries results · The One Club entry · WPP case page

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