The video works as a live YouTube link, please visit this URL that is currently live on YouTube before judging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2k6QjtKgA8

This is the case study leading in to the video. Please note that is currently live on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mgZey1Sbj-8

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is leading a movement against suicide. Every week 125 people in the UK take their own lives. 75% of all UK suicides are male. For whatever reason, men in particular, can often find it hard to talk openly about their genuine feelings.

Our brief from CALM was to start a conversation about mental health. To help men find the words and the courage to talk honestly about how they’re feeling.

We teamed up with England rugby star Joe Marler and set the scene in a post-match interview that contained a hidden message from him.

CALM had a very small budget so we were relying on the power of the idea to emotionally engage with people enough that they would share it with others.

YouTube was a good platform for this message as their demographics skew towards young adult males which coincides with the demographics most at risk from suicide and mental health issues.

We discovered that YouTube's preview function uses the first frame of every second and so with careful scripting and editing we could hide an alternative message, the real, vulnerable message. Viewers could then scroll along to reveal the powerful message to highlight his true mental state.

Since Joe Marler is a renowned England rugby player and famous for his hard man image, this was then even more powerful and inspiring when he revealed his true feelings.

The video gained over 80,000 views within the first 24 hours of being launched. It got picked up by numerous sports and news websites and made it to the top of Reddit.com’s videos subreddit where it amassed 14.6k upvotes. But the most important “results” were the hundreds of heartfelt messages and discussions that developed in the comments sections of Reddit and YouTube.

Creative Circle Winner for Best Innovation.

CALM - Finding The Words

CREDITS

Mike Plumridge

Matt Waller

Pete Roe

James McColgan

Simon Harris

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