Mental Health Awareness
Week 2021
The Mental Health Foundation has a clear mission, to help people to thrive through understanding, protecting, and sustaining their mental health. For the second year we worked with with the UK based charity on their flagship annual campaign Mental Health Awareness Week. We helped to define the campaign objectives, key messaging and call-to-actions, and created the campaign branding. The theme for this year was Nature, and specifically the mental health benefits of spending time in and connecting with nature. The campaign style fed through a range of deliverables, including animation, supporter packs, OOH advertising, case study films, reports and social media content.
The biggest challenge in this campaign was creating a broad appeal that resonated with a very wide and diverse audience. The MHF was trying to reach literally every UK adult, a huge task but a worthy ambition to help as many people as possible at a time when we all need a boost to our mental health. The look and feel for the campaign, the messaging and the call to actions had to be accessible and appealing for them to reach and engage with the UK’s diverse population.
To make the visual style of the campaign appealing and relevant we used a mixed media approach of combining quirky illustrations, photography, film and bold hand drawn typography. This enabled us to create an adaptable campaign that resonated with each platform’s audience, no matter what their personal circumstances were. We also ensured that we showed a diverse mix of races, abilities and environments to help the content connect with everyone in the UK.
We worked with a typographer and hand lettering artist for the hand-drawn typography element, creating positive short messages that would uplift people and inspire them to find out more. These were used in a range of different ways, from the main campaign lock-up to a suite of social assets and print documents.
The Illustration style was playful and fun, showing a diverse range of people connecting with nature in a huge range of ways. These illustrations were used across all comms assets too, enabling the campaign to feel accessible and friendly in tone, while delivering serious content and guidance.
We created an animated hero film in the mixed media campaign style to help them share the message and talk about the importance of Nature to our mental health. The script had to be fun and engaging, to get across the seriousness of the message, but in an accessible and friendly way. The quirky, illustrative style mixed with filmed footage and photography makes a rich and widely appealing look that that enables the film to be accessible to a diverse audience.
Our work with the Mental Health Foundation enabled them to gain more reach and resonance this year than ever before. Through a bold creative style, clear and inclusive messaging, they have grown their following and, hopefully, helped a lot of people to improve their mental health through connecting with nature.
Some of the key highlights for this years MHAW were:
- The Foundation secured over 25% share of voice for MHAW which is up by 3.3% compared with 2020.
- There were 1,654 unique media mentions of the Mental Health Foundation during MHAW reaching an estimated 58.2m people (according the Foundations media monitoring Cision), a slight increase in mentions compared to 2020 (1,410 mentions and 181.4m reach).
- The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge engaged with MHAW by holding Mental Health Minute on Friday 14th May, 2021. This activity significantly boosted coverage alongside a widely covered mid-week visit by the Duke and Duchess to Wolverhampton. The Royal Foundation also provided a graphic of Duchess of Cambridge and a quote for the Foundation to use specifically on the Foundation’s social channels.
- A very wide and eclectic range of celebrities and public figures engaged with the week. Some of the highlights included a Letter to Editors from Julie Walters, Gail Porter talking about mental health on C4’s Steph’s Packed Lunch and insights from Dr Radha.
- This year for the first time Wales secured extensive quality coverage across all media types during the week. ITV News Wales at 6pm interviewed Jenny Burns live, whilst also featuring a pre-recorded interview with a case study of Ruth Knight from Standing Together Cymru as well as Natalie Sadler.
- First time ever both Foundation’s hashtag #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and #ConnectWithNature were trending in the UK on Twitter at #1 and #2 position on the first day of the Week.
- Secretary of State Health Matt Hancock recorded mental health video with CEO Mark Rowland. They discussed the scale of the mental health problem and the evidenced-based preventive solutions that could be actioned to tackle this growing concern.
- Foundation’s Programmes have been heavily featured during MHAW this year, Standing Together Cymru attracted a lot of media attention including ITV Main News Wales
- Joint project with WWT London Wetlands Centre to assist hundreds of people gain access to nature through Blue Prescriptions Programme. This was featured on the front page of The Guardian.
- Over 6,000 schools pack being download showing the importance that nature plays on children’s mental health. Plus, The Week Junior puts us on the front page (circulation of 240,000 targeted at young people).
- Over 1.1 million page views on the Foundation website, around 80% of which is from new visitors. Nature Top Tips received over 80,000 page views.
- Engagement on Facebook grew by 45% from 2020 to 2021, even though there was a decrease in followers.
- To date the Direct Mail Appeal has raised £10, 838 and still counting exceeding its income target of £9,000 already. The appeal focussed on the Nature Peer Education Programme for Schools and young children
Thank you for your amazing work – it's been very important for growing us and Mental Health Awareness Week as a brand.
Triangulum is a collaborative project of three European cities: Manchester, Stavanger and Eindhoven, all working with data to make our cities more sustainable and liveable. Manchester City Council wanted a film that explained the project’s aims and the part Manchester is playing. The video had to appeal to both the public and those aware of the project who wanted to see proof of it in action.
Our script not only showcases the purpose of the project but also evokes a sense of regional pride and encourages others to reflect on how their city could do something similar. We decided on a mixture of live-action and animation; the animation communicated more complex, abstract concepts while the live-action demonstrated what is happening now in the city. Triangulum’s teal blue logo became the driving force behind our chosen colour palette.
The film is being used as part of Triangulum’s social strategy as well as at events to explain the success of the project and how the data Manchester is collecting will be used.
Working with Karl and his team at Flow was a great experience. They helped take a challenging topic, guiding us through the process of turning it in to something we are proud to show and to put our name to. The teams' willingness to go the extra mile was much appreciated as we juggled the animation, printing and a big event. Thanks guys!!
International fashion retailer, N Brown, who own brands such as JD Williams, Simply Be and Jacamo needed a film to tell their amazing story since the company’s launch back in 1875. The film would debut at a company wide 2-day conference and needed to excite and engage the 2,000 colleagues attending. We couldn’t wait to help!
The N Brown story spans almost 150 years, so we developed a look and feel that would translate from the Victorian era right through to present day. We used a collage approach that began with textured heritage imagery from old catalogues and order forms, and transitioned into slick broadcast TV ads and Instagram feeds, showing the impressive way N Brown has continually evolved to meet the demands of their customers. Music played a huge part in announcing each of the decades and helped to convey a passage of time across the film.
The film debuted at the conference and was met with applause from the 2,000 strong audience! It was the first thing the audience saw and set the tone for the rest of the 2 days which included live fashion catwalks and sharing future plans for the company. The film is now going to be used as part of the onboarding process for new employees of N Brown.
We came to Flow with a big challenge – to concept and deliver a short film to celebrate the history and heritage of N Brown and to turn it around in 3 weeks! The team accepted the challenge and worked relentlessly to build a lovely story about our business that we can all be proud of. Thank you Flow for a super job!
SmartImpact is a partnership between ten European cities. Its mission is to share knowledge about the five vital components of a “smart city”. Each city has an action plan for building a sustainable future, and our job was to create campaign materials to help the audience learn more.
To make this complex partnership more accessible, we built a bright, bold, and united style to work across 20 animated case study videos, 15 bespoke illustrations, web, print, wayfinding, and promotional products. We gave each smart city theme a different pattern and colour combination so that they can be used separately.
In March 2018, representatives of all ten cities came together in Manchester to take part in focused workshops and move SmartImpact forward. Our materials were at the heart of this showcase event. The toolkit is being used by every partner, and the website is a global hub for cities that share SmartImpact’s goals!
Working with Karl and his team at Flow was a great experience. They helped take a challenging topic, guiding us through the process of turning it in to something we are proud to show and to put our name to. The teams' willingness to go the extra mile was much appreciated as we juggled the animation, printing and a big event. Thanks guys!!
