How do you build a brand? Lessons from slum sanitation

How do you build a brand, and a logo, and an ethos that is powerful enough to provoke a movement for social change?

This was the question we faced as we launched our social enterprise in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. With 40 per cent of the world’s population lacking access to hygienic sanitation, 8M of whom reside in Nairobi’s urban slums, our mission is to build sustainable sanitation. The enterprise is called Sanergy, since our model begins with building toilets (SANitation) and ends with converting the waste to ENERGY. The play on words for the company name made a lot of sense to investors and partners, but what about our brand out in the community where our toilets are located?

After Sanergy builds toilets, we franchise them to local entrepreneurs, who run them as viable businesses, with slum residents paying between 3 to 5 Kenyan shillings per use. “Sanergy” didn’t really roll off the tongue in the context of the slum, and since most people’s main language is Swahili, “Sanergy” held no meaning. We needed something else that would represent our values, encourage entrepreneurs to buy more toilets, and prompt residents to want to pay for hygienic sanitation.

We thought about the problem we wanted to solve with our product (mainly unhygienic living conditions due to the lack of waste management in slum areas), and we began to consider what we wanted to inspire through our brand. Eventually, we settled on “Fresh Life” for its aspirational tone, nod to cleanliness, and its staying power (a lifetime of clean, rather than just a moment). The logo is a sun rising over green fields on a blue background).

Color selection was more informed by the market competition in the slums. Coca-cola had literally painted the town red with all its wall branding, Kenyan telecom company Safaricom had the monopoly on green, so a bright and happy blue seemed like our chance.

The Fresh Life brand carries three main characteristics. We want our network of toilets to be…

• …as consistent an experience as Coca-Cola. When you get a Coke in the Mukuru section of Nairobi’s settlements, it will taste the same as the one you get in Town. When you come to use a Fresh Life Toilet anywhere in the network, you should know what to expect (a friendly operator who greets you, toilet paper available, a clean facility, and water for handwashing, among other things)
• …as ubiquitous as Safaricom. You will find kiosks and stores for Kenya’s telecommunications company everywhere in Nairobi. Since most people prefer to walk no further than 500 yards from their house to find a toilet, we want Fresh Life to be a part of the fabric of the slum, available whenever a resident needs to use the toilet.
• …as accessible as Equity Bank. Equity has made a name for itself in Kenya for its access to capital where other banks will not lend. We want Fresh Life to provide hygienic sanitation for everyone, forever.

Thus far, we’re proud of the response we’ve received around the Fresh Life brand from the people in the community we work to serve. Our network of 150 Fresh Life Toilets is serving 7,000 residents every day, and in 2013 we’re looking to grow to 500 toilets.