A national brand campaign to share the mental health benefits of Kindness for the UK's biggest annual mental health event.
Challenge
The Mental Health Foundation is a UK charity whose mission is to help people to thrive through understanding, protecting, and sustaining their mental health. This year they asked us to help create a look and feel for their annual Mental Health Awareness Week. As part of the official government response to COVID-19, the theme for the week was kindness. We created campaign branding which fed through animation, fundraising packs, reports and social media content.
The importance of Kindness
This campaign went live at the first peak of the COVID pandemic, just after the first national lockdown. It was a tough time for everyone, filled with worry and stress. The Mental Health Foundation aimed to create a campaign that shared some positivity and gave people a sense of hope, and a reminder of the importance of being kind to each other.
We created a brand that dealt with the serious issues we were facing, but felt positive and left the UK feeling optimistic.
Campaign branding
The brand style championed the Mental Health Foundation green along with a complementary set of bold and positive colours, mixed with energetic textures.
The combination of geometric shapes and abstract textures communicated subtly how mental health can make you feel off-balance and muddled but the friendly and quirky characters kept the topic of mental health approachable and reassuring.
Animation
As part of the suite of materials for this campaign we created an hero piece of content, an animated film to help them spread the message and talk about the importance of Kindness.
We wanted the script to be fun and engaging, to get across the seriousness of the message, but in an accessible and friendly way. We developed the script into a poem, and the comedian Mark Watson, an ambassador for the charity, recorded the voice-over for the film.
The quirky, illustrative style comes alive in animation, and bespoke sound design adds the finishing touch.
Campaign assets
We created a suite of campaign materials including downloadable resources, supporter packs, social content, OOH and print advertising, and video.
The distinctive brand style, bold colour palette and character-focused illustration style helped to tie all the communications together and create a sense of momentum for the campaign.
The result
The animation and digital materials are currently part of the UK government’s official response to COVID-19 and has encouraged people to fundraise for the Mental Health Foundation during May, staying active during the current pandemic.
"We were really impressed by the creativity Flow brought to the mix and they felt like a great fit for this important campaign for us. We’ve loved collaborating with the team and the campaign materials they’ve produced are amazing."
Contributors & Credits
- Creative Director : Karl Doran
- Production Management: Sarah Brewster
- Design / Illustration: Alex Francis
- Animation : Winston Tsang, Jordan Painter, Inês Silva
