Thanks, Sanjay and Elisabeth, for the posts bringing us back to sanitation marketing. The pages that you reference, Elisabeth, from the LSHTM creativity in behaviour change symposium indeed offer a lot of food for thought. I confess this is not an area that I have much experience in. It seems clear, though, that we are not talking enough about what works inside the sector as well as with behaviour change experts from other sectors.

I do remember early discussions around WASH partnerships between public, private and civil society sectors and how each sector wanted to "control" the messaging (as the mandated authority on public health with a vested interest in constituents, as the party interested in sales and marketing with a vested interest in customers, and as the party interested in engagement and equity with a vested interest in "communities"). Controlling the message meant that you could plan for the response organisationally. It seems rare that the 3 groups come together to design an approach to messages that is meaningful and effective, requiring a joined up response from all three sides. Ultimately though as Sanjay suggests, putting the right messages in place only works when the systems (products and services) are there to respond.

You make an interesting point, Elisabeth, also about our terminology. Is marketing the right word for what we want to see happening? Are we clear about what it means and the implications? And how does it fit in with all the other tools that we use to "promote" behaviour change? (This was also addressed in part in another recent thematic discussion on sanitation and hygiene behaviour change programming for scale and sustainability - link .)

With regards -
Ken

A recent program of Water.Org from Kenya shows that either behaviour change promotion and marketing precedes WASH product or go simultaneously. Often is the case that if people get to know about a product through marketing or promotions and the product itself is not there on the shelf, they often loose interest or do not take it seriously, particularity when the target is low income community and the products have health and convenience value. For me it is important that these products are already pilot tested before going full scale promotion and sale.

Dear Ken,

Thanks for this summary, that's very useful.
I am not yet fully satisfied, however, with the answers I received to my questions raised here:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/225-th...e-sector-roles#15711


About my thematic question as to the connection between behavior change and sanitation marketing, I am unfortunately still as clueless as before... Is my question perhaps so stupid that it's hard to answer it? Or have the experts or anyone else overlooked it? I copy the main part again here:

I wonder if sanitation marketing should go hand in hand with behavior change approaches. Perhaps if we get the behavior change right, then we don't need so much marketing anymore? E.g. if people change their behavior (or aspirations?) and change to preferring toilets in their house, then there is no more point in doing sanitation marketing for toilet types that can only be away from the house (i.e. pit latrines).

Are the approaches that lead to behavior change the same as those used in sanitation marketing? I think not.

I just have this vague feeling that we throw around these terms (like "sanitation marketing") without having a clear, joint understanding of what it means.

In this context, it might help to set up a little Wikipedia page on sanitation marketing which doesn't exist yet. We do have one on behaviour change ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior_change_(public_health) ) but it's not that good yet. If anyone would like to work with me on improving this situation, just let me know.

Also, you asked me

Regarding the content, what aspects of the "creativity in behaviour change" workshop caught your attention that are particularly relevant to these discussions?

Nothing in particular, just the "creativity" aspect and learning from how others in the public health sector go about approaching this topic, e.g. when trying to achieve behavior change in the area of HIV/AIDS or to quit smoking or to eat a healthier diet. The conference organisers have done up a very good post-conference workshop page, see here: ehg.lshtm.ac.uk/2015/09/25/creativity-in-behaviour-change/

The word "marketing" appears only twice on this page with the conference summary; one of the two places is this presentation:
ehg.lshtm.ac.uk/files/2015/09/Tara-Macleod.pdf
(note: my browser said there's a problem with the security certificate of that website but another browser allowed me to open it).

Some information about this presentation:

Lastly we heard from Tara Macleod the Deputy Director of Strategy and Planning at Public Health England. She explained PHE’s unique marketing strategy which establishes umbrella brands throughout the life-course and then identifies stakeholders in the private and NGO sectors to align themselves with. Tara concluded that the strategy has enabled their work to become much more effective and recommended that it could be an example for other countries to follow.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear Colleagues -

Thanks for all the inputs across the two sites (WSSCC LinkedIn) and SuSanA during the first week's discussions on Raising demand for sanitation and hygiene services at the household level. Please find attached a rough summary that combines the two discussion threads - quite a rich discussion that covers a lot of different issues.

My thanks again to Lillian and Amaka in particular as well as to all contributors for sharing your views. (My apologies to Reza whose comprehensive and helpful views caught me after this was drafted and are thereby not captured in this summary. I will certainly be including them in the Week 2 summary and then the overarching summary document).

Your continued inputs and insights on this next sub-topic on the role of the private sector in meeting demand at the household level (link) are very much appreciated.

With regards -
Ken Caplan

Very interesting discussion. Thanks for initiating this. Starting with sanitation marketing: there are two separate issues: marketing of sanitation products and marketing of sludge emptying and / or transportation services. The issues are related but are different from each other. Interestingly, in other sectors, we often see the horizontal and / or vertical integration of business but in sanitation it is rare. Sanitation hardware includes toilet-kits and installation which comes in all different, materials, shape, size and construction. In Bangladesh, what we have experienced is the rising product lines in sanitation made-up of concrete, plastic and even pottery (in order of higher to lower prices). There is still enough room for improved professional services particularly masonry work that primarily includes knowledge of construction code, design of sludge collection port, pricing of materials and developing packages for installation of different category. Toilet hardware sellers and installation service providers are usually not involved in emptying and transportation services which has a huge growth potential both in terms of business and job creation, given the necessary regulatory enforcement and support is in place. In an urban setting, the private sector alone cannot do much, rather the city authorities and private sector together should develop plan of action in efficiently managing and regulating this business.

Sanitation Financing and Microfinance: When we say sanitation financing, in rural context it necessarily means building a toilet with microfinance. The moderator rightly pointed to the fact that sanitation financing does not receive the priority to the users’ financing needs. Sanitation financing should be treated as an emergency situation financing, like in Bangladesh in many places, the interest rates for sanitation finance is often below the average market interest rates, occasionally subsidized by Government / autonomous agencies, as a response to the disaster / sanitation needs of the poor / just as a promotion of ecological toilet solutions with installation for bio-gas generation for domestic purpose.

Financing Low-income Urban Settlements: This is a tricky situation both in terms of urban development and sanitation marketing which offers great scope for research and innovation. Settlements often have community or shared toilets. Shared toilets are difficult to manage on a regular basis raising funds from the users when it needs to be emptied. Experience shows that the users, even though agreed on a management terms at the time of installation, often looks out to the external help or assistance. This makes it a case for market driven service provision where the users may deposit a monthly fee for regular maintenance or just to fund for emptying when it is needed. Group micro-finance may work well in this case. Settlements are also increasingly a test case for introducing DEWATS which again needs to be maintained periodically. And again monthly subscription fees look like a feasible solution to this problem.

On Hygiene: I also see a missing link between sanitation products / sludge emptying services and hygiene promotions. A recent sludge emptying demonstration in a southern Bangladeshi city showed that users do get convinced and show initial enthusiasm about the hygiene aspect of sludge emptying services through mechanical devices. Hygiene promotion (e.g. water seal and prevention of odour and pests, convenient sludge emptying mechanism) can also be a part of marketing campaign of different sanitation products.

Note: The views expressed above is of the contributor’s only and does not represent the view of any individuals, groups and institutions.

Dear all,

I think that the private sector cannot really fulfill a role as a "Market Maker". What I mean the say is that I think that the sanitation private sector is not big and strong enough to create a market out of nothing. So if it comes to initial demand creation, we need other actors also. I would see a role for governments, the education sector, and (I)NGOs that support them to create an atmosphere where people feel that their life is not "complete" without a decent toilet in their house.

The private sector can then promote different toilet options, aspiration levels and technologies.


Regards

Marijn

How Can Private Sector engage meaningfully and effectively in Sanitation Marketing?
Sanitation Marketing seeks to develop products that are aspirational and affordable to consumers. Some of the new partnerships that we develop to strengthen the supply side are entrepreneurs/manufacturers and financiers/banks. 2 critical things that would help us shape our programming better are:

1. Ensuring consistency in quality of sanitation products and services as we go to scale? How can private sector be supported to do this?

1. Increasing access to products through affordable financing? At what point should financing be pitched? To entrepreneurs or to households?

What shape should such micro-credit take? Considering that in many instances the loans are as low as 20US dollars?

I do agree that there is a strong link between willingness and ability to pay. If private are to get involved with direct sanitation marketing, the products available in the market need to be such that allows them to do so. They need to be able transport both the products and the installation mechanisms directly to customers at ease. Currently, the sanitation products being promoted for rural and even urban poor areas are various types of pit latrines with bulky and heavy cement slabs. These may not be conducive for private sector involvement at a large scale. The products need to widely available and easily transportable in large quantities to fit into the business models currently used by the private sector suppliers that are involved in sanitary ways and other fittings for house construction.

Thanks for the prompt, Elisabeth, and apologies for not introducing myself properly. I have worked in the WASH sector for almost 20 years focusing primarily on different forms of cross-sector partnerships that aim to bring water and sanitation services to poor households. From 1999 until it was dissolved as a registered charity in 2014, I was the director of Building Partnerships for Development in Water and Sanitation (better known as BPD) which was a focused multi-stakeholder global initiative. Partnerships in Practice (PiP) has taken over where BPD left off, focusing on the same issues but in a much simpler organisational format. Working with a wide range of complex partnerships at the global, national and local levels, BPD/PiP has supported programmes in diverse contexts and on various WASH sub-thematic areas in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. This has included explorations of various relationships with and roles of the private sector, including early work by my colleague, David Schaub-Jones now with SeeSaw , on sanitation partnerships at different points in the sanitation service chain. (Along with other publications on BPD , see Sanitation as a Business )

Thanks for the other tips, which are appreciated.

Regarding the content, what aspects of the "creativity in behaviour change" workshop caught your attention that are particularly relevant to these discussions?

With regards -
Ken

I think for this the government should regulate this to assure the quality and like some accreditation system should design and those who have accreditate should promoted. on the other side the government should fix the price until the market competition engaged in full participation of private sectors, like public private partnership system shoud designed and the price should fix on negotiation. of course this may discourage the private sector for some time but after a while the market should be make free. But before al the socio cultureal influece that discurage the private sector participation should be identified in each context and place to tackle them. examlepe in my country ethiopa working with sanitation discouraged as the untouchable work and the least to be seen by the community so unless communities are very highly diablitated economically they will not prefere this work. so such like culture schould be studied and be intervene with encouragemnets.

Dear Ken,

Thanks for running this thematic discussion here!
(You introduced in detail the thematic experts, Lilian and Amaka. But how about a similar introduction about yourself? That would be useful.)

I look forward to reading the posts of the thematic experts that you listed here .

You mentioned cross-posting with the LinkedIn group. It seems that unlike in an earlier thematic discussion you decided to not copy people's posts 1:1, including their name, but rather to summarise what people said. I'd prefer to also see the direct copy and the names if that is possible? Will you also copy posts from the SuSanA forum back to the LinkedIn group (I think that could be potentially useful)?

Now my content question:

I wonder if sanitation marketing should go hand in hand with behavior change approaches. Perhaps if we get the behavior change right, then we don't need so much marketing anymore? E.g. if people change their behavior (or aspirations?) and change to preferring toilets in their house, then there is no more point in doing sanitation marketing for toilet types that can only be away from the house (i.e. pit latrines).
We have quite a number of threads on behaviour change in this category:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/71-beh...er-psychology-issues

Are the approaches that lead to behavior change the same as those used in sanitation marketing? I think not. By the way, I really enjoyed looking at the presentations from the recent "creativity in behavior change" workshop in London (see presentations and videos here: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/71-beh...udies-and-approaches). We have so much to learn from the experts in public health behavior change messenging. - To what extent will that spill over into sanitation marketing?

Regards,
Elisabeth

But the driving force for willingness to pay is very contextual, so careful study need. You don't know what you promot unless you study what do mean sanitation to your customer.