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232 CHAPTER 10 ■ “Safe Water Saves Lives”

Competition
Competition from other behaviors and other water treatment options existed.
Boiling had long remained a predominant home treatment for water.
However, research had shown that on average water is not boiled long enough
and re-contamination related to lack of residual protection and unsafe stor-
age render the practice less effective than other water treatment methods
(Clasen, McLaughlin, Nayaar, Boison, Gupta, et al., 2008). Solar disinfection
(SODIS) and filtering are also used to treat water; however, the seasonality of
the monsoon rains and longer treatment times (six hours or more), along
with the added expense of a special container or filter, tend to make these
types of treatment choices unpopular. The cost of one liter of bottled mineral
water is half a day’s wages for many workers, putting this form of safe drink-
ing water out of the financial reach of most of the population.

Motivators

The Madagascar Action Plan calls for potable water to be made available to all
citizens. Such commendable and ambitious policies and infrastructure plans of-
ten take decades to finance and construct. In the meantime, research indicated
that the Malagasy population was open to trying a new home water treatment
solution.
Research also indicated that many people knew contaminated water was
causing family members to suffer from diarrhea, especially young children, yet
still did not treat their water. The program team needed to find ways to motivate
individuals in each community to begin changing their own behavior, which
would eventually lead to communitywide changes.
A new and inexpensive water treatment system would find a significant con-
sumer market if it met the needs of the consumer by (1) reducing the threat of
diarrhea in the home, (2) being widely adopted as a new community behavioral
norm, and (3) being an easily adoptable practice.

P O S I TI O NIN G STATEMENT

The program developed the brand name Sûr’Eau and a positioning statement to
clearly define how the product would be marketed to consumers. This would al-
low the marketing team to focus its efforts and resources on a common under-
standing of the consumer and the benefits offered by the Sûr’Eau brand. The
positioning statement developed for Sûr’Eau is: