The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is hoping to get a conversation started about mental illness in a new campaign by DentsuBos.
The multi-channel campaign, which breaks Monday, aims to change the perception that mental illness only affects the individuals and families of those afflicted. It demonstrates the ripple effect of mental illness by focusing on five prevalent conditions: schizophrenia, depression, alcoholism, bipolar disorder and children with mental illness.
The aim is “to make mental illness a common topic so people are comfortable speaking about it in an honest, open way,” said Andy Manson, vice-president and executive creative director at DentsuBos in Toronto.
The campaign, which runs throughout the Greater Toronto Area, includes three TV spots, newspaper ads, transit advertising, online banners, YouTube content and Facebook ads. The ads will drive to the website CAMHUnderstanding.ca one the campaign launches, where visitors can interact and help spread the word with hashtags that post directly to their own Twitter or Facebook pages.
Each execution speaks about the downward spiral of each particular illness, as well as the recovery and hope that comes from treatment. The ads incorporate a variety of hashtags in an effort to start the conversation. For example, a newspaper ad begins with the copy: “If I get help with my alcoholism, I will start to #ShowUp. I’ll remember my #WifesBirthday and I’ll attend my #DaughtersRecital.”
The hashtags work on two levels, said Manson. “Even if you don’t chose to use Twitter at a bus shelter… the symbol itself implies talking about something. And then there is the mechanism there that allows you do exactly that.”
“Like all social media, it’s about sharing the message and telling friends who hopefully do the same and so on and so on,” said Manson. “We want to encourage people who use social media to speak about it to hopefully get the word out and make it more commonplace [to discuss] mental illness.
