Across the world, billions of people cannot access basic sanitation. And when a community lacks sanitation, diseases like cholera, diarrhea, and typhoid can spread rapidly and often. Children are particularly vulnerable, and chronic infections can have long-term consequences for their futures. The power of toilets flows into other important global issues, too, such as climate change, gender equity, vaccines, and more. PATH's Defeat Diarrheal Disease Initiative (DefeatDD) engaged our agency to design Poo Guru, a character illustration that shares practical and cost-effective prevention and treatment solutions. Through a lighthearted, playful mascot, we aimed to spur conversation around the serious subject of Diarrheal Disease and engage global audiences to give a stink about the problem.
Poo Guru takes a unique approach to a serious subject. We created a playful, international character to foster dialogue around the impact of Diarrheal disease. By incorporating different props and facial features, we hope to inspire our audience to consider the relationship between diarrheal disease and less obvious interventions like climate change mitigation, vaccines, gender equality, and healthcare access. We use these lighthearted Poo Gurus to destigmatize toilet talk and to bring awareness to a solvable health crisis. From a climate-conscious guru that reinforces the untapped potential of climate-resilient sanitation, to a feminist guru that highlights the disproportionately negative impact that lack of sanitation access has on women and girls, each guru has a story to share. Poo Guru destigmatized toilet talk on World Toilet Day across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for maximum impact.
Each guru animation represents a different sanitation intervention. From a climate-conscious guru that reinforces the untapped potential of climate-resilient sanitation, to a feminist guru that highlights the disproportionately negative impact that lack of sanitation access has on women and girls, each guru has a story to share. Poo Guru fosters conversation around sanitation, destigmatizing toilet talk across digital platforms on World Toilet Day. The engaging visuals amplify DefeatDD’s informational resources on simple prevention and treatment solutions that can save millions of lives.
DefeatDD’s campaign sparked intense online interest. Their digital posts resulted in nearly 18,000 website and blog views. As over 90 percent of these hits stemmed from new users, we are helping shine a light on Diarrheal disease and its solutions. Poo Guru also received 84,000 impressions across LinkedIn and YouTube, and was featured on NPR (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/11/18/1137423455/flying-toilets-sobering-stats-poo-gurus-debut-yes-its-time-for-world-toilet-day) resulting in over 48 million unique viewers for the character illustration.
