Case study
Everyturn Mental Health is a North East based charity that provides NHS talking therapies services across the country. We were asked to help the charity develop an effective campaign that would improve referral numbers in its Mid-Nottinghamshire service area. We needed to be creative, but considerate in our messaging and delivery.
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for mental health support in the UK’s general population was at an all-time high. Many who would have normally been able to manage their mental health found themselves struggling to cope, but not realising that they could access free talking therapies through the NHS.
The challenge faced by Everyturn was that its services in Mid-Nottinghamshire needed to increase referrals amongst audience groups that may not realise, or want to admit that they need, or could access, this free service to feel better. These included:
We were asked to support Everyturn by creating an impactful, integrated PR campaign for hard-to-reach audience groups who might be disengaged from traditional press and social media channels.
Our objectives were:
As the challenge lay with getting an effective message to those who needed the support most, we got creative with the format of the delivery of our messages. We therefore booked advertising across a number of different formats including beer mats, bus stop advertising, radio adverts, door drops, digital and print advertising, and media relations.
We knew our audience were known to be proud or not want to admit that they needed support, so we carefully shaped our key messages to ensure they learned about the symptoms of poor mental health, without making them feel targeted.
Our creative reflected that with a prominent strapline that said ‘this beer mat / advert is not for you – we want to talk to the person who isn’t here’, and shared important signs that someone may be struggling with their mental health.
We met with Everyturn colleagues working at a local level to really understand the needs of the people we were trying to help. We learned that the community in Mid-Nottinghamshire are very proud and often don’t like to admit that they are struggling themselves. However, there is a great spirit of helping others, so if we raised awareness of the symptoms of poor mental health, people would likely share this with any loved ones they were worried about.
Due to the diversity of our audience, we agreed a multi-channel approach would have the greatest impact – using formats and locations you might not expect to see messages about mental health to be!
Our campaign achieved:
