Synergist - October 2009

campaign, which includes a video of family members greeting workers as they return home at the end of a workday, won the 2007 Australian Marketing Institute Marketing Program of the Year award. (To watch the video, go to www.youtube.com/ watch?v=R8vkxXyB96o.)

Hoffman argues that a focus on family protection will be key to a successful marketing campaign for industrial hygiene. “This marketing image [of the hygienist] would be someone who is helping the community, helping the family, much the way a physician [is portrayed],” he explains. “If the image of the occupational hygienist was helping the worker and their family, I think [the campaign] would be farther-reaching, because, again, people [in the developing world] are on a different level” of Maslow’s hierarchy. “This image, we thought, would raise awareness about hazards as well as make [industrial hygiene] a desirable career path.

“One of the biggest problems, when
you do get a few people trained in the
profession in developing countries, is
that they realize they can make a lot
more money in the developed world, so
they don’t stay. It’s not just an issue of
finding people to do it—we want them to
feel like they’re valued members of the
community.”
According to Sharann Johnson, one of
the judges for the Breakthrough Thinking
Competition, that community connection
will make the “local hero” a more effec-
tive ambassador for industrial hygiene
than an outsider would be. “My experi-
ence shows that when a worker promotes
an OHS issue, the quality of the commu-
nication is just right for that group of
people, rather than me trying to guess
what they want to hear,” Johnson ex-
plains. “It’s more believable and convinc-
ing, and [produces] a better result all
around.”
McCluskey, another Breakthrough
Thinking judge, credits the uniqueness of
the social marketing concept for making
Local Hero stand out from competing
ideas. “All of the ideas were good,” Mc-
Cluskey says. “But this one was com-
pletely outside the box. . . . We
Americans are so education-focused, and
[Local Hero] kind of flipped it on its ear,
saying [that] someone in a country that
didn’t have formal training and education
in our field could learn enough to advocate

for a safe workplace. There are countries where you’re not going to have a masters in industrial hygiene program anytime soon. As developing countries industrialize and plants and factories are built, there’s going to be a huge lag time in getting qualified professionals in there to have responsibility for running the program. So rather than a top-down approach like we normally see, [Local Hero] is more of a bottom-up approach.”

Tending the Grassroots

No one can say to what degree a Local Hero initiative could change working conditions in the developing world. Everyone can agree, however, that the dreary reality demands a response. McCluskey believes that nothing short of a grassroots movement will bring about the necessary changes.

The judges’ deliberations, McCluskey
says, included discussion of Upton Sin-
clair’s 1906 novel The Jungle. Sinclair’s
depictions of conditions in the U.S. meat-
packing industry caused a public furor
that led to passage of the Pure Food and
Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. If
Local Hero is to be a catalyst for similarly
extensive change in working conditions
in the developing world, it will need an
organization such as AIHA to provide the
initial spark.