Written explanation

Why is this work relevant for Health & Wellness?   

See My Pain is relevant for the health category because for the first time we made mental pain visible for everyone. And in doing so, we created more comprehension for mental illnesses. A.I. was not used to merely generate images, but as a way of communicating between people. 

At the same time See My Pain is a life changing tool that facilitates the expression of pain in therapy sessions. It’s a tool every psychiatric hospital in the world can use to help patients express their pain.

Because one image still says more than 1000 words.

Background

Mental health disorders are on a rise. Today, one out of ten Belgians have a psychological disorder. Still, we find it harder to show empathy for mental pain than for physical pain. Why? Because mental pain is invisible and therefore difficult to understand. Moreover, stigma in society often leads to misinterpretations of that pain. 

Helan is a pioneer in mental well-being in the Belgian health industry. Therefore, Helan wanted to strengthen the relationship with its audience of people with a psychological disorder. The challenge was to make patients feel acknowledged and make them feel understood.

The creative idea

With the help of artificial intelligence, we made invisible pain visible. For the first time A.I. was not used to merely generate an image, but as a new way of communicating between people and their surroundings, enabled by a brand.

Under the guidance of a clinical psychologist, we let patients express their pain in a very detailed way. An AI image generator then created a unique visualization of the experienced pain, that could be understood by Helan, and by the rest of the world. 

Patients testified that it was the first time that they truly felt understood.

The strategy

In Belgium, 60% of people with a psychological disorder don’t talk about how they feel with friends and family. A major difficulty appeared to be the limits of our language. When people describe their pain, their conversation partner has to form an idea of what it feels like, based on the words they use. Sadly, words are open for interpretation and biases influence how that pain is perceived. As a consequence, people often avoid conversations in order to not be stigmatized. 

The strategic choice was thus to avoid words in our communication and look for an alternative way to get people to understand what mental pain feels like. In doing so, Helan helped people with a mental disorder and they strengthened their position as a leader in mental well being.

The execution         

Together with a psychologist, we rolled out an ultimate experience to help our audience communicate their pain.

Patients were asked to describe their mental pain to a psychologist. An AI image generator then created a unique image based on their description, word by word. The outcome was an objective, unbiased visualization of the patients’ mental pain.

These computer generated images were exhibited at 4 of Flanders' biggest psychiatric hospitals to spark a conversation between patients, doctors and visitors.

On World Mental Health Day we launched a short format documentary of our project on social media. This campaign had no commercial link or call-to-action, bringing all attention to the understanding of mental pain.

The video got picked up by the press and made it to prime time national news on World Mental Health Day. The medical world responded to this and contacted us to implement this tool.

The results   

Overwhelming reactions of patients showed their gratitude of finally being understood by a brand. The impact on our brand was unmistakable: whilst all competitors lost on brand awareness and brand consideration, Helan’s awareness rose with +8% and consideration with +11%

The comprehension of mental pain went far beyond the relationship between Helan and patients:

1) See My Pain was a huge step forward to create more comprehension in wider society: 

-The documentary had an engagement rate of 228% above benchmark and a CTR to the Helan site of 253% , showing that people engaged with it on a much deeper level.

-As a result of this engagement and press interest, we reached 3.2 million people, that’s half of the population in our target region (Flanders)

2) See My Pain is even transforming the medical world. The biggest Belgian Psychiatric Hospital, Group Alexius, is now using our tools for therapy.

Cultural context that would help the jury understand how this work was perceived by people in the country where it ran

1. Culture

Belgium has a rather closed culture when it comes to sharing emotions. Mental problems are in our country insufficiently discussable and still a big taboo. This is very problematic if you know that Belgium has the 3th highest suicide rate of Europe. This rate is a lot worse than our neighboring countries (France, the Netherlands and Germany are ranked 9th, 12th and 13th). 

2. Regional context

Helan is a Flemish health insurance and thus only operates in the north of Belgium: Flanders and the Flemish speaking part of Brussels. All communication of this and other Helan campaigns is only in Flemish and thus results are only measured in the Flemish speaking areas.

Confidential information for the jury    

Before rolling out this project, we pitched the idea to clinical psychologist Ellen Sleuwaegen and consulted her in all stages of our process.