Destigmatising mental health: the challenge briefs for Do it Day 2017

A number of challenge partners have set their briefs for the industry to crack in line with this theme, with the final goal being to create campaigns during Do It Day in November.

In preparation, Do It Day's Hack Day will take place on World Mental Health Day on Tuesday 10 October, where participants will join their teams and begin to work on the briefs, ahead of the final work being revealed next month.

Each challenge partner will choose one campaign at the end of Hack Day as the winning idea to be executed on Do It Day.

Below is a summary of each of the seven briefs that will be set at the different locations:

Singapore

National Council of Social Service (NCSS)

According to the Singapore Mental Health Study 2010, more than one in 10 people will have a mental health condition in their lifetime. It also found there was a general unwillingness to talk openly about mental health issues because respondents would not want anyone to know if they are suffering from a mental illness.

The study also found that people with mental health issues believe that they are stigmatised by society, feel they have a lower quality of life if they had no income, felt excluded from society and did not feel that they could fulfill their potential.

This challenge will see the set team asked to develop a holistic public education campaign with the aim to address social stigma on mental health issues in the workplace.

Community Health Assessment Team (Chat)

The mission of Chat is to promote the three ‘A’s of awareness of mental illness, access to mental health resources and assessment, of which it offers a check by mental health professionals to young people in Singapore. For Do It Day, Chat is tasking the teams to tackle the well-known gender gap surrounding young men and their willingness to discuss mental health. It says its challenge is in knowing how to motivate this group to seek professional help early for suspected mental health concerns/illnesses and promoting Chat as one of the platforms they can turn to.

London

Best Beginning

Best Beginnings, the child health charity founded in 2006 by Alison Baum, is challenging attendees of Do It Day to raise awareness and use of its Baby Buddy App to help guide young mothers aged 16 to 25 year-olds - both physically and mentally - through pregnancy.

Now in its 11th year, the charity has reached over 2 million families across the UK and is supported by high-profile figures including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. But with around two in 10 women developing a mental illness during pregnancy or within the first year after having a baby, and one in 10 children born premature or with a health difficulty, the need to support the parent’s - especially young women's - physical, emotional and mental health care is growing.

The Mix and Dixons Carphone

The Mix provides support for young people under 25 on topics ranging from mental health to money, homelessness, finding a job, break-ups and drugs. For Do It Day, it is teaming up with Dixons Carphone and House of Experience to create or stage something that pulls people’s attention to its YouTube page and encourages them to interact with it.

The charity is looking to the industry to come up with a creative PR stunt, or other forms of creative content, to generate engagement by clearly communicating the strength of under 25s in line with its winter campaign dubbed 'Stronger'.

It is potentially looking for examples of successful video content which can be produced in one day, along with ideas and inspiration for effective stunts highlighting the concepts of “strength” and “resilience”.

Young Minds

Young Minds is a charity that puts the wellbeing and mental health of young people first, acknowledging data claiming that half of all mental health problems first start by the age of 14.

The group has identified the transition from primary to secondary school as one of the major causes of this youth anxiety and has teamed up with Do it Day 2017 to provide support to kids during this vulnerable period.

The brief is to help parents support children making the move from primary to secondary school by generating buzz around the Find Your Feet programme.

Young Minds will develop its voice through the development of video and animated content in addition to developing marketing and PR strategies.

The Drum and Alternative Genius

For its own Do It Day challenge, The Drum has teamed up with the creative ideas platform Alternative Genius.

In the majority of cases, mental health problems need not exist. They are problems of our own culture’s making, problems of our own making and problems we could all easily act to change.

With that in mind, The Drum's brief is to create a campaign idea that will transform people’s attitudes to mental health problems in the workplace and daily life by calling out and challenging its root problems. The creative will also address mental health’s branding problem – the fact that not many people know what they’re dealing with and the stigma around talking about their problems.

The final campaign needs to be big and exciting – stunts, public outdoor advertising, press advertising, content, social media…anything that will get noticed and create action. And, to make an even bigger noise, Alternative Genius is offering a £5,000 fund for the winning team to enter their campaign into the Cannes Lions awards.

New York

Mental Health America (MHA)

MHA, the United States’ largest community-based nonprofit dedicated to addressing the needs of those living with mental illness and promoting the overall mental health of all Americans, has issued an important challenge to the US marketing community for Do It Day 2017: intervention and screening before mental health reaches a critical stage.

MHA built an overarching philosophy borne from a hashtag in 2014, #B4Stage4, which stands for ‘Before Stage Four,’ a phase of health crises that is well-known, especially for those with cancer.

‘Stage Four’ for mental health carries a similar weight and MHA seeks to greatly amplify the message to the broader US society to educate and encourage people to get early screening.

Learn more about Do It Day at the dedicated webpage or keep tabs on Hack Day and Do it Day on 16 November through the live blog that will run on The Drum website for both days.