2023 Bronze Public Sector

Agency: Wavemaker UK, M&C Saatchi and OmniGov

Client: Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID)

Entry Name: Making Media the Medicine

Executive Summary

The topic of mental health has seen elevated importance over recent years thanks to charity, public sector and commercial campaigns to reduce stigma and increase conversation. But there has still been poor conversion of increased conversation at an abstract level into positive action at a personal level.

Strategy

Research shows that many do not know how to manage common mental health concerns (stress, anxiety, low mood), or know that they should be doing so.

With the disproportionate negative effects of the pandemic on the mental health of younger adults, the audience focus was 18 to 34s. It was clear from previous activity that this younger target audience was much less likely to come to OHID’s Every Mind Matters (EMM) site when prompted by advertising. Instead of promoting EMM’s Mind Plan to this younger audience, which was the hero product and key call to action at launch, the team decided to deconstruct it.

The campaign targeted media behaviours that were indicative of sub-clinical mental health issues. It tapped into ‘numbing moments’; times when the audience removed themselves from the stresses and strains of the day.

Creativity

The campaign team transformed media placements in numbing moments into positive mental health action opportunities.

The creative became the solution and the media effectively became ‘the medicine’:

• 30-second breathing exercises were delivered via VOD
• Digital audio ads took the form of meditation guides
• Interruptive social ads became prompts to take time away from phones

Creative and media worked seamlessly together to ensure that mental health support was provided at the precise moments and in the optimal environments when the audience would be most receptive to mental health action-oriented content.

Results

By bringing self-care solutions to the audience - in ad format, in the moments where they were feeling down - rather than driving them to EMM’s estate, the campaign generated a sustained behavioural shift:

• 3.2 million positive mental health actions, surpassing the goal of 1.99 million
• 78% of those who’d reported taking a positive action claimed to still be acting two months later; the target was 50%
• 40% recall among the core target audience
• 83k new sign-ups to the Every Mind Matters email programme