While the power of advertising has been chronicled in myriad ways and reflected in innumerable campaigns, DDB New York has added a fresh, new, groundbreaking product development and creation chapter to the industry book of achievements, teaming with WATERisLife to launch “The Drinkable Book,” a manual that teaches safe water tips and serves as a tool that literally kills deadly waterborne diseases, providing the reader with the means to create clean, drinkable water with each page.
“The Drinkable Book” features a brand new type of paper invented by McGill University & University of Virginia chemist, Dr. Theresa Dankovich, and works like a scientific coffee filter. Each page of the book is coated with silver nanoparticles, which kill diseases like cholera, E. coli and typhoid.
The book itself works in three easy steps. Simply tear along the perforation. Slide the filter into the 3D printed case (i.e., the book’s packaging). Pour the contaminated water through and the result is drinkable water. After passing water through the filter, there is a reduction of greater than 99.99 percent in bacteria count, which is comparable to tap water in the United States. Each book contains 24 usable pages, each of which contains two filters which each last 30 days. In total, the book can provide a single person with clean water for up to four years.
“The Drinkable Book,” said Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer of DDB New York, “will revolutionize water purification. It costs only pennies to produce, making it by far the cheapest option on the market.
The potential of this product development breakthrough is far reaching. A staggering 3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease and, in most of the cases, the victims didn’t know the water was unsafe to drink in the first place. Therefore, “The Drinkable Book” isn’t just a tool that purifies water, it teaches proper sanitation, too. The content on each page, printed in food grade ink in both English and Swahili, educates people about safe water habits–providing life saving information, such as keeping trash and feces away from your water source.
WATERisLIFE will be distributing “The Drinkable Book” to villages in need as part of an integrated water, sanitation and hygiene program to save lives and transform communities. The video below serves as an introduction to “The Drinkable Book.”
Since 2011, DDB New York and WATERisLIFE have worked together to raise awareness of the global water crisis and raise donations to help build clean water solutions in the world’s poorest communities. Recently, the agency launched The Girl Who Can’t Cry, an online film that documents the many hardships faced by a young girl in the slums of India, revealing the fact that she can’t cry due to dehydration. Earlier, DDB NY turned out the online film Kenya Bucket List, which shows the experiences of a four-year-old Maasai boy in order to create awareness that one in five children don’t reach their fifth birthday, as a result of unsafe drinking water in sub-Saharan Africa.
