desymbol: ITV asks us to reach out in new mental health campaign

To coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK, ITV’s new campaign comes as part of the broadcaster’s continued efforts to encourage discussion about mental health conditions.

Designed to reflect text messaging formats and group chats, the new series of spots highlight the kinds of conversations many people around the country are having while the vast majority of our communication shifts to digital mediums during lockdown.

The spots range from the lighthearted – such as debuting a dodgy DIY haircut to the group chat or enduring a lengthy monologue on the state of the garden – to more touching moments like sending an ultrasound scan of the newest member of the family.

One clip involves ruminating over the wording of a message (or whether it’s worth sending at all), a common occurrence as people grapple with conversations that miss all the usual staples like tone and body language.

The new campaign is an evolution of one of Uncommon’s Britain Get Talking project for ITV, this time with a decidedly digital feel in keeping with the times. It is particularly aimed at younger audiences and arrives as one in four young people are starved of mental health support during Covid-19, and there has been a spike in first-time patients.

“This campaign and identity was designed against the production trends this lockdown is forcing us into. We wanted to create something different, honest and jarring, but still emotional,” says Uncommon co-founder Nils Leonard. “We used the way we actually message as our medium. The candid love, the one sided wanging-on and the tortuous hesitation we have all felt brought to bear how hard it can be to do the simplest thing: reach out to the ones you normally don’t.”