The Challenge

Nearly 80% of suicides in the UK are men, yet males make up less than half of NHS therapy referrals. 1 in 8 men also admit to suffering from some form of mental health. Mind asked us to create a donations campaign that highlighted the issues around men’s mental health and encouraged people to donate to the charity so they could continue to be there when people needed them the most.   

The Insight

We wanted audiences to understand the severity of the impact of mental health on men and how they may be seen as the ‘invisible gender’ of mental health. We needed to visually show how public donations make a real, tangible difference to people’s lives. A winter World Cup combined with the Christmas period gave us the perfect opportunity to do this.

The Solution

Working with brand ambassadors such as Bradley Wiggins, Clarke Carlisle, and Ben West, as well as current Mind staff, we created a two-part campaign that ran on social media and direct mail throughout December. 

 The first wave targeted people during key World Cup moments and used the link between the emotions we feel watching the emotions of football and the emotions people experience when struggling with mental health issues. The second wave ran over Christmas and was centred around the ‘Silent Nights’ carol. We used an instrumental version of the song to create a distressing but hard-hitting video. The creative showed just how damaging it can be for people to keep their feelings and how opening up is critical to getting support. This was combined with static posts that showed men disappearing into the background as their struggles worsened.