Queensland Health has unveiled its latest campaign, tackling the taboo of pooing at work, ensuring us “It’s okay to poo at work”.
Comments reacting to the campaign lauded Queensland Health for bringing the topic out of the shadows, though others did express their surprise: “Did the government just put an image of Taylor Swift pooping in my brain?” and “Dear QLD Health. R u ok?”
The social media campaign was released this month by the Queensland health department.
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Health and marketing experts are hailing the campaign as “world-leading”.
The Instagram video borrows from the TikTok meme format of a psychedelic montage of dolphins, unicorns and rainbows set against Neick Sanders’ song Symphony and the words: “It’s okay to poo at work”.
While the post is light-hearted and humorous, it gets serious, too, warning of the dangers not pooing at work can lead to.
“Consistently ignoring your need to poo can lead to stool getting stuck in your colon, haemorrhoids and other serious issues. So, it’s better to let it out than hold it in,” said the caption.
“If you find it extremely difficult to poo around other people, you might have parcopresis”.
“Sometimes called ‘poo paranoia’, people with this condition have an overwhelming fear of being judged by others because of the sounds or smells associated with pooing.
“As a result, they may experience symptoms like increased heart rate, sweating or nausea”.
“I think it is genuinely one of the best government department social media teams,” said Dee Madigan, founder and creative director, Campaign Edge.
Madigan highlighted that the engagement rate of the non-sponsored posts about defecating at work were “extraordinary”, with more than 3,500 comments on Facebook and more than 22,000 likes on Instagram within a week.
“Just starting to talk about it [openly], everyone has those secret conversations with people,” Madigan said. “I think what it shows is a department where the staff feel not scared to do stuff like this because often government departments’ social media is so safe, it’s actually just bland and boring,” she said.
“It is actually a serious message, they’re just using social media in the correct way to deliver it … Just because something’s a serious topic doesn’t mean you can’t use humour to get into it”.
