While the world is living in a pandemic due to Covid-19, a study pointed that only 48% of Gen Z in Brazil washed their hands after using the restroom (and only 33% of them used soap).

We had a real problem in our hands, but also an opportunity to educate young people to wash their hands properly (an essential step to reduce the spread of the virus).

To top that up, Rexona just launched a line of antibacterial soaps, so the team needed to develop an impactful action on social media communities around the product during the pandemic, but the question was: how to promote it without sounding opportunistic? And most importantly, how to do so in a native way for Gen Z, so that they really feel engaged to participate and wash their hands?

With a study pointing that only 48% of Gen Z in Brazil washed their hands after using the restroom (33% of them used soap and the majority being teen boys) our team realised this could be a serious issue during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But how could they reach an audience that hates ads and all those educating messages that look like their parents saying what they must do? The answer was simple: to not create a campaign. In the first weeks of the pandemic, we saw a boom on TikTok for the Gen Z, so that’s where we ought to be.

We composed an original song, with lyrics that educate the step-by-step of washing hands, then we put together a team of Gen Z influencers, created a choreography and we were the 1st brand to launch a new challenge for the good on TikTok.

Tiktok has become the most popular app in Brazil during the pandemic with more than 78MM downloads in April 2020.

We deep dived on social networks to discover what was trendy among Genz Z and found out a rising star band featured only on TikTok called “Hotelo”, so we partnered up with them, wrote a song about washing hands properly, came up with a choreography and created a challenge on TikTok with a perfect combination of entertainment and education – a mix that’s crucial for Gen Z to get engaged.

The next step was to create a hashtag #LavaMãoChallenge (#WashingHandsChallenge) and to invite Brazilian celebrities and influencers to join the challenge, creating their own best video versions, dancing and washing their hands, which helped us to spread the word, with no media investment.

A CDC study shows that 20s is enough to prevent the spread of germs when washing your hands, so we used this time frame to create a 20s song to entertain young Brazilians while educating about washing hands properly.

Alongside with Hotelo, a rising star TikTok band, we composed a song, created a choreography and started the challenge. Brazilian influencers and celebrities like Anitta (52.4MM followers), Rodrigo Simas (6.4MM) and Agatha Moreira (5.2MM), to name a few, joined the challenge and helped us to spread the word. It quickly became a hit and our challenge got into the most relevant TV Shows in Brazil, for a whole week we united the biggest TV presenters to talk about Rexona's hygiene movement, spreading a powerful message to their audiences: wash your hands.

After the TV boom, the social challenge got even bigger, reaching out millions and millions of people.

• +20 relevant Brazilian influencers joined the challenge in a week: Anitta (52MM), Rodrigo Simas (6.4MM), Agatha Moreira (5.2MM), Sergio Malheiros (2.3MM), Sophia Abrahão (5.3MM) and Vitoria Strada (2.1MM) to name a few.

• +4K spontaneous video challenges in a week on TikTok with no media investment

•. +100MM impacts

• + 14MM views on TikTok and Instagram

• + 75.6MM people impacted on TV in less than a week

•. +50 articles about washing hands released by major papers after the campaign

• First brand in Unilever Brazil to use TikTok for a digital campaign