I ran out of body wash the other day, and while doing my research on what a suitable replacement could be, decided that it was probably best to invest in bar, rather than liquid. Obviously if you’re buying soap for a communal gym shower, then the bar is a bit unpleasant, but that is far from my particular use case.
I don’t know if I fully believe that a bar of soap lasts between 2-10x more than the liquid, but I’m open to believing it. I will use it for the first time tomorrow, and keep a track of its outcome. For $9, even if it lasts the same amount of time as the body wash, I think I am still saving money.
This feels like a rather mundane topic, so I’ll spice it up with a little throwback to a business idea I had 10+ years ago, inspired by a Melbourne Company called Free Water. The idea was simple; distribute free water at festivals and uni events, paid for by sponsors. So you’d get a free bottle (cost < $1), be pleasantly surprised it is free, ask why, and then rehydrate while reading a little bit about the sponsor. I remember being interested in what the sponsor was doing, rather than feeling forced into it in the way YouTube or TV adds invade your space.
My idea grew off of this. The basic pitch was distributing hand soap to communities with low access to hygiene in places like Sub-saharan Africa and South Asia. My mother has been a lifetime advocate for the power of handwashing, but if you only have water and $2 to your name, it’s a lower priority. Soap is borderline free to make in large batches, but distributing them without the power of markets is really difficult. Having a third party, a sponsor, come in and do the paying solved that issue.
I didn’t give it the world of thought, but if I remember correctly, it felt quite clever. For advertisers/sponsors, you were getting your clients to hold your advertisment, in their hands, a few times a day, with at least a speck of gratitude. That feels more valuable than a 30 second ad on TV where people are looking the other way. Plus it has a feel good factor, which large corporate wouldn’t love to be able to get a bit of marketing upside out of their “giving back” programs? For the recipients, hand hygiene directly helps solve one of the most pressing issues in the developing world, a problem that we have had a working, affordable solution for decades.
Maybe I should run this through the Innovera System and see how much legs this idea has, 10 years on.
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