Let´s cure uninterest

Project summary

In connection with the annual collection Day of Remembrance, the League for Mental Health approached the MARK BBDO agency with a request for cooperation. Other agencies also joined: digital agencies PS:Digital and Diorama, the production company Soft Pillow and the PR agency PRime time. The project thus uniquely brought together several Slovak agencies and personalities in order to arouse the interest of the public and the media in topics that do not interest anyone. Thanks to the PR part of this campaign, we recorded more than 160 unpaid media appearances in three weeks. The public has finally begun to take an interest in mental health.

Goal

The League for Mental Health as an NGO has been trying for 20 years to help people suffering from various forms of mental illness, but it is struggling with a general lack of interest. The most tangible consequence is that the life-saving helpline Nezábudka disappeared 12 years ago and has not been restored to this day. In recent years, the interest of the public and the media in the topic of mental health has declined, the League has not succeeded in public collections either… It thus reached the brink of existence, resources and human strength, and it was vital to make a topic that does not interest anyone again a topic that resonates in society.

Strategy&plan

The campaign focuses on the biggest barrier that prevents any change in the unhappy state: disinterest alone. It turns a major obstacle to a key idea and seeks to gain the interest of the public and competent state organizations. The active involvement of the media and the use of celebrities, who diverted the natural attention of the public to the issue of mental health, was crucial for the success of the campaign. The aim of the “Let’s cure disinterest” campaign was to attract public attention and start implementing the renewal of the Nezábudka helpline.

Realization

Web
At the beginning of the campaign, a microsite was launched, where we told the Story of Remembrance and launched an online collection.

Attention switches
The campaign was gradually joined by personalities with whom the MARK BBDO agency shot short videos. They then shared them on their social networks. The videos have received tens of thousands of shares and positive comments from their followers. Iveta Radičová, Ivan Bella, Celeste Buckingham, Michal Hvorecký, Evelyn, Ludwig Bagin, Dominika Kavašová, Sajfa, Juraj Tabaček, Peter Bebjak, Adam Ďurica, Marcel Forgáč, Branko Radivojevič and Tomáš Starosta joined the campaign. Some of them revealed personal motivations to get involved in the campaign.

The media
We prepared two press conferences for the media, where representatives of the League for Mental Health, leading Slovak psychiatrists and a representative of NCZI talked about the state of psychiatry in Slovakia, the Nezábudka helpline and the collection to support it, and alarming statistics on mental health of young people in Slovakia. We have provided the media with up-to-date information and data. We managed to get the topic to Teleráno in TV Markíza and to the evening news of RTVS.

Results

The most important media outputs:

• RTVS news on the day of the start of the collection, the anchors blue forget-me-nots pinned
• In TV Markíza, there was discussion of suicide, the collection and the campaign
• SME daily
• Extensive long-form on the topic in the online sme.sk (sme.primar.sk, sme.kultura.sk, fici.sk)
• Interview with MUDr. Belanská on topky.sk
• Regional dailies throughout Slovakia

In three weeks, we secured more than 160 outputs on print, online, TV and radio. 14 personalities of Slovak cultural, sports and social life got involved by sharing a video for the League through their profiles.