Consumers' Reactions to Marketing Campaigns About Mental Health

As there is a huge stigma around mental health as a subject, it can be difficult to get people's opinions on how they feel about the overall topic at hand. This post will discuss how various campaigns managed to get consumers' attention and the effect it had on consumer engagement as a whole. Discussed will be campaigns that conducted sufficient research on their audience and adapted to their findings successfully with high engagement rates on all parts.

These campaigns were all hugely important because of the apparent lack of representation mental health has in marketing. In Marketing Week's article “Marketing’s Diversity Problem,” they state that “Over a fifth of marketers (21%) select this as the area where the profession has made the least amount of progress over the past decade.” and “This suggests many brands are failing to adequately represent and cater for people with mental health issues in their marketing – and may not even be acknowledging their place within society. Gender identity (for example, transgender, transsexual, transvestite) and physical disability also score highly among marketers as being areas where the industry has made the least progress (14% and 11%, respectively).”

Recently studies have shown that even a short video on the topic can help change perceptions of mental health “Study 1 provided initial evidence that a brief video campaign may effectively improve both knowledge about a disorder and its treatment, as well as attitudes toward seeking psychological help.” (Ponzini et al. 2019)

See Me – The Power Of Okay

See Me is Scotland’s Programme to tackle mental health stigma and discrimination; they run on Scottish Government funding and comic relief and are managed by SAMH (See Me Scotland). In 2015 they released a video called “The Power Of Okay” after commissioning a YouGov poll aimed at identifying the underlying issues that cause the stigmatisation and discrimination related to mental health. 1,165 Scottish workers were surveyed about their views on mental health. (Global Web Index).

YouGov Poll results showed that 48% of Scottish workers don’t tell their employers about their mental health issues in fear of being fired, and 55% thought that someone in their workplace with a mental health problem would be less likely to tell their employers due to fear of being passed over for promotion. 72% of people thought that someone with mental health issues in the work place would be supported by colleagues asking them what they could do to help (YouGov).

With this information, See Me released a campaign (see video above) with the hashtag #powerofokay with the message of getting people talking to their co-workers and asking if they are okay. They ran this campaign in cinema’s, online and even ran a radio campaign with the poem. This was launched in November 2015 and as a result See Me saw a 42.8% rise in website views and attracting 73% new website visitors with a 22% visitor return rate. (Thedrum.com). This was a hugely successful campaign because See Me did sufficient and thorough research to ensure that they had the best campaign possible.

TheLadBible Group – UOKM8?

TheLadBible Group prides themselves on redefining entertainment and breaking news for a new social generation. In 2016 they released a campaign called “UOKM8?” which was comprised of three months of creating social content which aimed to raise awareness of mental health issues among men. It was inspired by the high rate of suicides in British men under the age of 45. They ran an audience poll with results showed that 37% of respondents had considered ending their lives at some point (TheLadBible).

Ian Moore from TheLadBible Group said “Around half of all British men between 18-24 follow TheLADBible and I believe that by opening up our platform so our audience can talk about these issues, we can persuade young men to give themselves permission to talk about the feelings of isolation, anxiety and depression that they currently keep secret.”

The campaign reached over 38 million young people and took in 823k engagements (TheLadBible). This worked because TheLadBible Group knew their audience and used their knowledge to reach the correct audience in the correct way. The campaign saw many stories from many different young people and gave valuable advice on how to help friends with mental health issues. They talked to their audience in their language and it provided a hugely successful return.

Instagram – #HereForYou

Instagram launched this campaign due to noticing that a high level of young people turning to social media when they are seeking help for their mental health. Instagram co-founder and ex-CEO Kevin Systrom wrote “Every day on Instagram, we see people share their mental health journeys and connect with communities of support. From dedicated accounts around an issue to unique hashtags adopted by groups, these communities are helping to make illnesses that are often invisible to friends and family visible through photos and videos.” It was intended to encourage Instagram users to better support and help each other and find appropriate help.

The campaign consisted of a one-minute video (see above) which featured three Instagram users discussing their past struggles with eating disorders, suicidal thoughts and depression. It used the hashtag #HereForYou which was already a popular hashtag with Instagram users. This campaign worked because Instagram understood its users, which is one of the most important things when starting a marketing campaign.

The Blurt Foundation – #BlurtSelfCareathon

The Blurt Foundation describe themselves as a “social enterprise dedicated to helping those affected by depression” (The Blurt Foundation). Their strategic priorities include increasing awareness and understanding of depression, which is where their marketing campaign comes in. As with the above-mentioned campaigns, The Blurt Foundation knew their audience and targeted a certain age group with their campaign.

They started the hashtag #blurtselfcareathon to encourage people to talk about their feelings about mental health and got bloggers, with audiences of young people aged 14-25, such as Carrie Hope Fletcher (www.carriehopefletcher.com) and Jodie Paterson (www.jodiepaterson.com) involved to help push the campaign further. Their campaign reached hundreds of thousands of social media users.

Each campaign was equally important to raising awareness of mental health to a younger audience and each succeeded with high engagement levels. There has been a lack of representation in marketing regarding mental health despite it being a hugely important part of our existence, therefore these companies doing research and targeting the correct audience was incredibly important to break the stigma.

References

GLOBAL WEB INDEX., 2019, Global Web Index [online] [viewed 14 April 2019]. Available from: https://blog.globalwebindex.com

MARKETING WEEK., 2015, Marketinngs Diversity Problem [online] [viewed 6 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.marketingweek.com/2015/11/25/an-utter-disgrace-marketings-diversity-problem/

PONZINI, G. T. and Schofield, C. A., 2019. Randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of a direct-to-consumer marketing campaign for social anxiety disorder, Stigma and Health.

THE BLURT FOUNDATION., 2019, About us [online] [viewed 15 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.blurtitout.org/about/

THE DRUM., 2019, Case Studies: See Me – The Power of okay [online] [viewed 2 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.thedrum.com/profile/space-and-time-media/case-studies/see-me-power-okay

THELADBIBLE GROUP., 2016, UOKM8 [online] [viewed 4 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.TheLadBible.com/UOKM8

YOUGOV., 2015, See Me Poll Results [online] [viewed 14 April 2019]. Available from: https://yougov.co.uk/