Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

On 8th September 2010, we planted 167 spades in Trafalgar Square to launch a new campaign for WaterAid, encouraging the world to ‘dig toilets, not graves’.

One fifth of the world’s population lives without a proper toilet. Without proper toilets, they have to go wherever they can. Their faeces contaminates the water they drink and the food they eat. This causes deadly diarrhoeal diseases. As a result, a child dies from diarrhoea every twenty seconds in the world’s poorest countries. That adds up to 167 lives wasted every hour. Hence the number of spades in Trafalgar Square.

This tragic fact is at the heart of our new supporter recruitment campaign for WaterAid. The campaign shows how simple pit toilets can stop the spread of diarrhoea, and encourages respondents to make a regular gift and to sign a petition calling on the UK Government to help end the lack of toilets in the world’s poorest countries.

A viral film shows what it is like to live in a world where you cannot escape from poo.

A TV ad, directed by award-winning director Susannah Hayes, features the popular playground song “Diarrhoea Diarrhoea”. The first half of the ad, shot at a primary school in Hackney, shows British children smiling and giggling as they sing the song:

“When it comes out your bum like a bullet from a gun, diarrhoea, diarrhoea.

When you do a little dance and it’s gooey in your pants, diarrhoea, diarrhoea.

When you’re on the seat for hours and it doesn’t smell like flowers, diarrhoea, diarrhoea.”

It then cuts to a child in Zambia, who speaks the following lines in a more sombre fashion, in contrast to the light-hearted singing at the beginning of the ad:

“When it’s just killed your sister and you’re really going to miss her, diarrhoea, diarrhoea.”

The ad asks viewers to text “dig” to 88008, call or visit www.digtoilets.org  to find out how they can help.

The TV ad will appear on channels including Sky One, Living, Discovery, Bravo, More 4 and Sky Sports. 

Other campaign activity includes inserts, email, a microsite www.digtoilets.org  and online display ads.

The campaign forms part of an ambitious five year global strategy launched by WaterAid at the end of last year.

Commenting on the campaign, Amy Faulkner, Supporter Recruitment Team Manager at WaterAid said; “We’re extremely pleased with the highly original and impactful campaign which Kitcatt Nohr has created in response to our brief. We are confident that the campaign will help us to achieve our fundraising targets for this year as well as getting the critical issues of sanitation and diarrhoea talked about more widely.”