Melinda French Gates: What nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola

319,148 views ・ 2010-10-12

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:15
One of my favorite parts
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of my job at the Gates Foundation
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is that I get to travel to the developing world,
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and I do that quite regularly.
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And when I meet the mothers
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in so many of these remote places,
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I'm really struck by the things
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that we have in common.
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They want what we want for our children
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and that is for their children to grow up successful,
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to be healthy, and to have a successful life.
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But I also see lots of poverty,
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and it's quite jarring,
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both in the scale and the scope of it.
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My first trip in India, I was in a person's home
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where they had dirt floors, no running water,
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no electricity,
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and that's really what I see all over the world.
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So in short, I'm startled by all the things
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that they don't have.
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But I am surprised by one thing that they do have:
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Coca-Cola.
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Coke is everywhere.
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In fact, when I travel to the developing world,
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Coke feels ubiquitous.
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And so when I come back from these trips,
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and I'm thinking about development,
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and I'm flying home and I'm thinking,
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"We're trying to deliver condoms to people or vaccinations,"
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you know, Coke's success kind of stops and makes you wonder:
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how is it that they can get Coke
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to these far-flung places?
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If they can do that,
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why can't governments and NGOs do the same thing?
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And I'm not the first person to ask this question.
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But I think, as a community,
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we still have a lot to learn.
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It's staggering, if you think about Coca-Cola.
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They sell 1.5 billion servings
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every single day.
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That's like every man, woman and child on the planet
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having a serving of Coke every week.
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So why does this matter?
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Well, if we're going to speed up the progress
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and go even faster
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on the set of Millennium Development Goals that we're set as a world,
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we need to learn from the innovators,
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and those innovators
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come from every single sector.
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I feel that, if we can understand
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what makes something like Coca-Cola ubiquitous,
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we can apply those lessons then for the public good.
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Coke's success is relevant,
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because if we can analyze it, learn from it,
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then we can save lives.
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So that's why I took a bit of time to study Coke.
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And I think there are really three things
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we can take away from Coca-Cola.
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They take real-time data
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and immediately feed it back into the product.
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They tap into local entrepreneurial talent,
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and they do incredible marketing.
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So let's start with the data.
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Now Coke has a very clear bottom line --
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they report to a set of shareholders, they have to turn a profit.
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So they take the data,
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and they use it to measure progress.
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They have this very continuous feedback loop.
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They learn something, they put it back into the product,
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they put it back into the market.
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They have a whole team called "Knowledge and Insight."
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It's a lot like other consumer companies.
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So if you're running Namibia for Coca-Cola,
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and you have a 107 constituencies,
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you know where every can versus bottle
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of Sprite, Fanta or Coke was sold,
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whether it was a corner store,
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a supermarket or a pushcart.
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So if sales start to drop,
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then the person can identify the problem
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and address the issue.
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Let's contrast that for a minute to development.
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In development, the evaluation comes
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at the very end of the project.
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I've sat in a lot of those meetings,
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and by then,
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it is way too late to use the data.
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I had somebody from an NGO
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once describe it to me as bowling in the dark.
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They said, "You roll the ball, you hear some pins go down.
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It's dark, you can't see which one goes down until the lights come on,
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and then you an see your impact."
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Real-time data
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turns on the lights.
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So what's the second thing that Coke's good at?
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They're good at tapping into
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that local entrepreneurial talent.
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Coke's been in Africa since 1928,
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but most of the time they couldn't reach the distant markets,
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because they had a system that was a lot like in the developed world,
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which was a large truck rolling down the street.
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And in Africa, the remote places,
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it's hard to find a good road.
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But Coke noticed something --
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they noticed that local people were taking the product, buying it in bulk
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and then reselling it in these hard-to-reach places.
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And so they took a bit of time to learn about that.
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And they decided in 1990
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that they wanted to start training the local entrepreneurs,
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giving them small loans.
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They set them up as what they called micro-distribution centers,
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and those local entrepreneurs then hire sales people,
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who go out with bicycles and pushcarts and wheelbarrows
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to sell the product.
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There are now some 3,000 of these centers
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employing about 15,000 people in Africa.
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In Tanzania and Uganda,
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they represent 90 percent
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of Coke's sales.
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Let's look at the development side.
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What is it that governments and NGOs
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can learn from Coke?
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Governments and NGOs
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need to tap into that local entrepreneurial talent as well,
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because the locals know how to reach
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the very hard-to-serve places, their neighbors,
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and they know what motivates them to make change.
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I think a great example of this
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is Ethiopia's new health extension program.
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The government noticed in Ethiopia
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that many of the people were so far away from a health clinic,
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they were over a day's travel away from a health clinic.
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So if you're in an emergency situation -- or if you're a mom about to deliver a baby --
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forget it, to get to the health care center.
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They decided that wasn't good enough,
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so they went to India and studied the Indian state of Kerala
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that also had a system like this,
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and they adapted it for Ethiopia.
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And in 2003, the government of Ethiopia
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started this new system in their own country.
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They trained 35,000 health extension workers
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to deliver care directly to the people.
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In just five years,
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their ratio went from one worker for every 30,000 people
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to one worker for every 2,500 people.
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Now, think about
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how this can change people's lives.
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Health extension workers can help with so many things,
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whether it's family planning, prenatal care,
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immunizations for the children,
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or advising the woman to get to the facility on time
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for an on-time delivery.
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That is having real impact
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in a country like Ethiopia,
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and it's why you see their child mortality numbers
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coming down 25 percent
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from 2000 to 2008.
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In Ethiopia, there are hundreds of thousands of children living
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because of this health extension worker program.
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So what's the next step for Ethiopia?
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Well, they're already starting talk about this.
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They're starting to talk about, "How do you have the health community workers
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generate their own ideas?
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How do you incent them based on the impact that they're getting
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out in those remote villages?"
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That's how you tap into local entrepreneurial talent
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and you unlock people's potential.
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The third component of Coke's success
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is marketing.
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Ultimately, Coke's success
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depends on one crucial fact
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and that is that people want
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a Coca-Cola.
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Now the reason these micro-entrepreneurs
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can sell or make a profit
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is they have to sell every single bottle in their pushcart or their wheelbarrow.
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So, they rely on Coca-Cola
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in terms of its marketing,
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and what's the secret to their marketing?
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Well, it's aspirational.
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It is associated that product
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with a kind of life that people want to live.
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So even though it's a global company,
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they take a very local approach.
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Coke's global campaign slogan
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is "Open Happiness."
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But they localize it.
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And they don't just guess what makes people happy;
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they go to places like Latin America
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and they realize that happiness there
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is associated with family life.
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And in South Africa,
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they associate happiness
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with seriti or community respect.
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Now, that played itself out in the World Cup campaign.
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Let's listen to this song that Coke created for it,
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"Wavin' Flag" by a Somali hip hop artist.
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(Video) K'Naan: ♫ Oh oh oh oh oh o-oh ♫
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♫ Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ♫
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♫ Oh oh oh oh oh o-oh ♫
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♫ Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh o-oh ♫
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♫Give you freedom, give you fire♫
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♫ Give you reason, take you higher ♫
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♫ See the champions take the field now ♫
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♫ You define us, make us feel proud ♫
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♫ In the streets our heads are lifted ♫
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♫ As we lose our inhibition ♫
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♫ Celebration, it's around us ♫
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♫ Every nation, all around us ♫
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Melinda French Gates: It feels pretty good, right?
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Well, they didn't stop there --
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they localized it into 18 different languages.
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And it went number one on the pop chart
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in 17 countries.
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It reminds me of a song that I remember from my childhood,
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"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing,"
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that also went number one on the pop charts.
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Both songs have something in common:
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that same appeal
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of celebration and unity.
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So how does health and development market?
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Well, it's based on avoidance,
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not aspirations.
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I'm sure you've heard some of these messages.
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"Use a condom, don't get AIDS."
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"Wash you hands, you might not get diarrhea."
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It doesn't sound anything like "Wavin' Flag" to me.
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And I think we make a fundamental mistake --
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we make an assumption,
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that we think that, if people need something,
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we don't have to make them want that.
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And I think that's a mistake.
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And there's some indications around the world that this is starting to change.
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One example is sanitation.
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We know that a million and a half children
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die a year from diarrhea
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and a lot of it is because of open defecation.
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But there's a solution: you build a toilet.
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But what we're finding around the world, over and over again,
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is, if you build a toilet and you leave it there,
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it doesn't get used.
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People reuse it for a slab for their home.
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They sometimes store grain in it.
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I've even seen it used for a chicken coop.
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(Laughter)
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But what does marketing really entail
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that would make a sanitation solution get a result in diarrhea?
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Well, you work with the community.
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You start to talk to them about why open defecation
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is something that shouldn't be done in the village,
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and they agree to that.
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But then you take the toilet and you position it
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as a modern, trendy convenience.
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One state in Northern India has gone so far
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as to link toilets to courtship.
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And it works -- look at these headlines.
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(Laughter)
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I'm not kidding.
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Women are refusing to marry men without toilets.
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No loo, no "I do."
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(Laughter)
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Now, it's not just a funny headline --
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it's innovative. It's an innovative marketing campaign.
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But more importantly,
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it saves lives.
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Take a look at this --
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this is a room full of young men
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and my husband, Bill.
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And can you guess what the young men are waiting for?
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They're waiting to be circumcised.
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Can you you believe that?
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We know that circumcision reduces HIV infection
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by 60 percent in men.
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And when we first heard this result inside the Foundation,
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I have to admit, Bill and I were scratching our heads a little bit
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and we were saying, "But who's going to volunteer for this procedure?"
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But it turns out the men do,
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because they're hearing from their girlfriends
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that they prefer it,
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and the men also believe it improves their sex life.
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So if we can start to understand
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what people really want
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in health and development,
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we can change communities
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and we can change whole nations.
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Well, why is all of this so important?
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So let's talk about what happens when this all comes together,
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when you tie the three things together.
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And polio, I think, is one of the most powerful examples.
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We've seen a 99 percent reduction in polio in 20 years.
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So if you look back to 1988,
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there are about 350,000 cases of polio
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on the planet that year.
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In 2009, we're down to 1,600 cases.
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Well how did that happen?
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Let's look at a country like India.
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They have over a billion people in this country,
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but they have 35,000 local doctors
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who report paralysis,
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and clinicians, a huge reporting system in chemists.
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They have two and a half million vaccinators.
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But let me make the story a little bit more concrete for you.
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Let me tell you the story of Shriram,
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an 18 month boy in Bihar,
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a northern state in India.
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This year on August 8th, he felt paralysis
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and on the 13th, his parents took him to the doctor.
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On August 14th and 15th, they took a stool sample,
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and by the 25th of August,
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it was confirmed he had Type 1 polio.
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By August 30th, a genetic test was done,
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and we knew what strain of polio Shriram had.
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Now it could have come from one of two places.
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It could have come from Nepal, just to the north, across the border,
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or from Jharkhand, a state just to the south.
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Luckily, the genetic testing proved
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that, in fact, this strand came north,
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because, had it come from the south,
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it would have had a much wider impact in terms of transmission.
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So many more people would have been affected.
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So what's the endgame?
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Well on September 4th, there was a huge mop-up campaign,
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which is what you do in polio.
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They went out and where Shriram lives,
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they vaccinated two million people.
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So in less than a month,
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we went from one case of paralysis
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to a targeted vaccination program.
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And I'm happy to say only one other person in that area got polio.
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That's how you keep
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a huge outbreak from spreading,
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and it shows what can happen
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when local people have the data in their hands;
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they can save lives.
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Now one of the challenges in polio, still, is marketing,
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but it might not be what you think.
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It's not the marketing on the ground.
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14:39
It's not telling the parents,
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"If you see paralysis, take your child to the doctor
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or get your child vaccinated."
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We have a problem with marketing in the donor community.
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The G8 nations have been incredibly generous on polio
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over the last 20 years,
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but we're starting to have something called polio fatigue
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and that is that the donor nations
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aren't willing to fund polio any longer.
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So by next summer, we're sighted to run out of money on polio.
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So we are 99 percent
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of the way there on this goal
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and we're about to run short of money.
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And I think that if the marketing were more aspirational,
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if we could focus as a community
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on how far we've come
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and how amazing it would be
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to eradicate this disease,
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we could put polio fatigue
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and polio behind us.
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And if we could do that,
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we could stop vaccinating everybody, worldwide,
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in all of our countries for polio.
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And it would only be the second disease ever
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wiped off the face of the planet.
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And we are so close.
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And this victory is so possible.
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So if Coke's marketers came to me
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and asked me to define happiness,
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I'd say my vision of happiness
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is a mother holding healthy baby
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in her arms.
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To me, that is deep happiness.
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And so if we can learn lessons from the innovators in every sector,
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then in the future we make together,
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that happiness
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can be just as ubiquitous
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as Coca-Cola.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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About this website

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