Client Success Story

headspace Day

Befriending The Bad Guy: Inspiring mental health proactivity among young Australians

Challenge

headspace Day is a national day of support for the mental health and well-being of all young Australians. It encourages young Aussies to “pause, reflect and reconnect” with something they love. The primary objective of this campaign was to not only increase awareness of headspace and headspace Day, but to inspire young Australians to take steps to improve their mental health.

With the aftershock of COVID lockdowns still lingering, years of dangerously high ‘screen and home time’ left the mental health of young Australians in a very vulnerable state.
Cue the dilemma: how can we effectively target young Aussies with a mental health message on platforms that can contribute to mental ill-health?

Audience Insight

We were able to identify that news, especially around the pandemic was a key contributor to negative experiences online and mental ill-health. Despite this, it was recognised as the perfect media focal point for investment. Why? It provided an opportunity to flip audience engagement and sentiment from negative and anxiety-inducing to positive and helpful. And so was born the campaign, “Diversion from Doom”.

Solution

We knew that to encourage mental health proactivity and empower communities to discuss mental health, the role of media was paramount. Our objective was to:
Intercept and motivate young people to step away from their screens
Re-instil a sense of community in the physical world

We utilised high-impact touch points over both digital and traditional platforms including, radio (as well as Spotify and podcasts), website display, content seeding and out of home advertising. These methods allowed for mass community presence to be built – so much so, many media partners recognised the importance of the campaign objective and offered substantial in-kind placements to help broaden reach.