Don't Be the 5th Guy!

The American Society for Microbiology sent researchers into public rest rooms to watch what people do. They found that 4 out of  5 people wash their hands after using the restroom. But what about the 5th?   Don't be the 5th guy!

NEWS/PR:

http://knightnews.com/2011/04/ucf-5th-guy-where-is-he-now/

www.publichealthpractices.org/practice/5th-guy-campaign-fl

www.centralfloridafuture.com/news/you-don-t-want-to-be-the-5th-guy-1.1422566#.USQ3y6VQXKt

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/painter/2007-10-07-clean-hands_N.htm

            The 5^th guy campaign hasn’t seen quite as much news attention as others but the articles that have been written about it give it high praise.  The campaign seems to be centered just in Florida although it has spread to a few schools such as Michigan and George Washington University.  The main school where the campaign took place was UCF, where a student actually played the 5^th guy. Overall, the campaign central to Florida was very successful and got good reviews from the articles found online.

The 5^th guy campaign has caught national news.  USA Today wrote an article about the “dirty-handed 5^th guy” in October of 2007.  The article praised the campaign and the cleaver character the 5^th guy.  It rehashed all the of shocking campaign information about just how many people don’t wash their hands even though it is one of the most important things you can do to reduce illness. The article states, that where these health warnings may fail, new marketing and products may succeed.  Things like alcohol-based hand sanitizer gels in handy tubes have been recently very popular, and would be a great gift for that 5^th guy!

            Public Health Practices is also impressed with the 5^th guy campaign calling it “sophisticated” and a “highly entertaining social marketing campaign.”  They say the campaign is noteworthy because “it uses humor to reinforce healthy behaviors that could reduce the impact of respiratory infections.”  Viewers of the campaign feel disgusted by the 5^th guys behavior on television spots, radio promotions and on the 5^th guy MySpace page.  Overall, they felt the message was based on two concepts; One being low interest in the flu means low interest in flu related campaigns and the other being that basic hand hygiene is valuable lesson people are able to take in. Both of these concepts they felt they campaign did a very good job addressing.

            The Central Florida Future wrote an article about a student from UCF who plays the 5^th guy.  David Cohn is a 21 year-old theater major who’s job is to walk around campus holding a urinal, as is seen in the 5^th guy ads, and hand out hand sanitizers.  The hand sanitizers have a clip and the 5^th guy logo on one side with the UCF 5^th guy website on the other. The message of this campaign is the same as the 5^th guy campaign started by the Florida Health Department: 4 out of 5 people don’t wash their hands and you don’t want to shake hands with the 5^th guy. Students reported that the fact that Cohn walks around with urinal is intriguing to them and catches their attention. UCF Health Services hopes the campaign will actually make an impact on students.  The campaign started in November of 2007 and will run until the end of spring semester. Cohn says he loves his job and at the end of the days “it’s all about healthy hands on campus.”

GOALS/EVALUATION:

1. The 5^th Guy campaign targeted four behaviors they wanted to change in order to improve disease control and prevention in the state of Florida. They chose not to focus on pandemic facts but instead on preventative measures, because at the time in Florida there was no threat of a pandemic. The behaviors their campaign aimed to changed were:

·      Hand Washing

·      Staying home from work when you are sick

·      Covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze

·      Stocking up on supplies in case you get sick, so you don’t need to leave your house.

The campaign focused it’s efforts on slowing a possible pandemic from spreading, all the actions targeted were practices which Floridians could easily follow without any major lifestyle changes or extra costs. The campaign did not propagate any information or statistics on possible pandemics or the affects they have. Instead the campaign narrowed it down to only behavior changes, not facts on sicknesses in the area.

            The main messages to get the behavior change across to their Florida audience was done by highlighting the social norms that are broken with bad hygiene and protecting yourself and others from sickness. The line “Four out of five people wash their hands after using the restroom…could someone talk to the fifth guy” was the main slogan behind the campaign. This line does not highlight anything about sickness or pandemics but instead focuses solely on hygiene in a setting such as an office. The simplicity of the message combined with the humorous angle targets the everyday behavior that the campaign focused on. The campaign would be inherently different if it chose to take a more medical perspective, for example by promoting flu shots. The Department of Health believed that the everyday behavior changes would have a bigger affect on the general public in Florida and something their target audience would respond to better than the medical approach.

            The main goal of this campaign was the four hygienic behavior changes with a hidden agenda to create disease prevention without the scary facts.

3. The department of Health in Florida had a relatively small budget for their campaign but still aimed to cover the whole state, and all the media markets, which entails therefore the campaign was somewhat limited in its airtime and exposure. But even with budgetary and time constraints, the campaign did solidly showing many significant results which if the department chooses to follow up with could have long term benefits using the brand of the 5^th Guy.

            The results from the campaign were gathered by conducting a post-intervention study in which 800 Floridians were surveyed after the TV spots had aired. 29% of the sample recognized the ‘5^th guy’ and tagline. The Department attributes this to the standout nature of the campaign’s message, which even with short-lived exposure, made an impact.

            All of the target behaviors where significantly improved upon in the public according to post-interview surveys. The behavior that saw the most improvement was staying home when sick with a percentage of people who reported staying home when they are sick was 60%. This resulted in a 4.7% change from the pre-survey results, which are a significant change.  In the case of hand washing those who saw the campaign reported more hand-washing practices then those who had not seen the campaign.

Although the numbers of the campaign results were seemingly small, overall the four target behaviors all changed significantly and therefore the campaign reached its goals. With more time and a bigger budget the results would most likely be higher, and in the future the brand of the 5^th guy would be a wise choice for the Department of Health to use again because the results show that the brand of the campaign stuck with many people and changed their everyday behaviors.

THE 8 “Ps”:

Product: Changing people’s behavior to get them to wash their hands, stay home when sick, and sneeze/cough into arm/tissue. The message is based on 2 concepts: a.) Low interest in pandemic flu would undermine audience receptivity to campaigns about an influenza pandemic, and b.) Enhancing basic hand and respiratory hygiene is a valuable, pandemic-relevant lesson that people would absorb today.

Price: Price refers to what the audience has to give up in order to adopt the behavior… so this refers to people having to take the time to be more conscious about their habits.  There could be an emotional price that the individual could pay by not adopting these behaviors (i.e. social acceptance from peers). Another price could be that if people do not adopt these behaviors, they could be putting themselves at risk of getting sick.

Place: Home, work, school, public/private locations, anywhere, everywhere, all the time!

Promotion: TV ads, radio ads, billboards, stickers on newspaper, online (homepage of Orlando Sentinel). Public relations: press events, morning talk shows, editorial board meetings, speaking engagements. Online campaign: 5^th guy website, Myspace, Youtube. Point of Purchase campaign: out of home and collateral materials offer guidance on how to prepare for seasonal flu/potential flu pandemic (message on shopping carts, at grocery stores, posters for retail locations). Posters in workplace (made available to businesses), posters/stickers in healthcare and public facilities (doctor’s offices, bus stations, airports).

Public: The main external public in this campaign is the main target audience. The target audience includes all Florida residents, as the campaign is aimed at creating a “healthier Florida.” Other external publics include schools, local community agencies, employers, local media resources, Internal publics include the US Department of Health and Human Services, Florida Department of Health, American Society of Microbiology, and Centers for Disease Control.

Partnership: The 5^th Guy Campaign partnered with many organizations to help get their message out. Some include, Florida Chamber of Commerce, University of Central Florida Student Health Center, Herrle Communications, Department of Education, Florida Public Relations Association, Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, Agency for Workforce Innovation, Department of Children and Families, Florida After School Alliance, American Red Cross, Orange County Schools, the Boys and Girls Club, and The Children’s Campaign.

Policy: There were not any policy changes that developed because of this campaign.

Purse Strings: The US Department of Health and Human Services increased federal funding for pandemic flu preparedness and prevention messaging in 2004. The 5^th Guy project ran in 2007 and had a budget of $1.4 million.

MEDIA ANALYSIS:

Digital Media: The Fifth Guy’s use of digital media platforms much like many others was through YouTube, which was created in 2005. The campaign’s video contents were well thought out videos that were not only entertaining, and at times distracting with the use of methods such as ‘Reality Construction/Trade-Offs’ (i.e. holding the urinal). They were also informative with the catchy slogan, “Germs are getting stronger, let’s get smarter.” With close to 82,000 views they made somewhat of a presence on that stage and they’re feedback was evident of this. Their YouTube campaign did as well as they could have in the sense of their goal, they wanted a state-wide informative campaign in a time frame (2007-2009) where media then was eons behind where media is now, and this is a reoccurring theme throughout their use of digital and social media platforms.

Social Media (Weakest): Fifth Guy’s Use of social media was a very weak attempt to say the least, but it was not necessarily their fault. The Fifth Guy’s Myspace account that was their only platform for social media was created in the 2007-2008 range, which unfortunately was a time when social media was thought to be a dying breed and definitively ‘on its way out’. Myspace, which had basically become D.O.A. in the sense that it was no longer ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ to use, Twitter was a no-name site, and Facebook was still a college culture but on the up-and-up into the international premier platform for connecting that it is today. So, needless to say with these odds against them it was tough for the Fifth Guy’s social media presence to flourish so it quickly died out.

Traditional Media: The Fifth Guy's traditional media approach was a stellar one to say the least. From billboards, to posters, to radio commercials-- The Fifth Guy campaign pulled out all stops to really get the message across to its Floridian locals. They provided 3 different languages (English, Creole, and Spanish) in reference to official state of Florida language maps. Their dedication extended to even having the actor who portrayed the Fifth Guy going to radio interviews with his urinal in hand spreading driving home the importance of workplace hygiene. Their traditional approach to media was very strong and proves that traditional media will always have a place as the pinnacle of the press and campaigns.