How R/GA’s partnership with Kimberly-Clark is helping spread awareness around sanitation access
In the latest R/GA Live event on April 13, we took a close look at the “Where is the Bathroom” campaign drawing attention to the lack of access to basic sanitary facilities people face across much of Latin America, and Kimberly-Clark’s work addressing the issue since 2015 across nine Latin American countries.
After a viewing of the “Where is the Bathroom?” campaign video, Kimberly-Clark brand manager, Latin America Alejandra Forero addressed why the company chose to focus on the issue.
“It’s a fact that access to sanitation is a critical social issue globally,” she explained, adding that around 800 children five years of age or younger die from causes related to poor sanitation every day. As a large global company, she said, Kimberly-Clark has both the power to make a global impact and the responsibility to use their position for good.
“We believe in this cause. This is a purpose, a long-term commitment,” Forero said, outlining the brand’s goal to help 10 million people gain sanitation access in Latin America by 2030.
But the company has long faced the challenge of communicating the full scale of the program’s impact and importance, she explained — which is where the partnership with R/GA and “Where is the Bathroom?” comes in. Realizing the need to spread awareness about the issue, and instill a sense of urgency, Kimberly-Clark tapped R/GA to deliver the message in a way that made it “more tangible, bigger, and bolder.
R/GA Strategy Director Angela Rocca shared the insights that sparked the campaign, while Executive Creative Directors Josefina Casellas and Ignacio Jardon dove deep into the creative process behind the attention-grabbing approach. “It’s a huge problem that needed to be told in a very big way,” Casellas explained.
While that may be the type of challenge creatives relish, the process wasn’t always easy. Casellas explained that the bold approach meant a more difficult shoot navigating any number of uncertainties to bring the campaign to life. “So many things could go wrong,” she said. “Literally everything could go wrong.”
To learn how the team kept pushing to make “Where is the Bathroom?” bigger, and navigated such logistical challenges to bring to life an impactful message, watch the R/GA Live event in full.
