Time to Change launches £900k ad campaign

The £900,000 campaign encourages the nation to talk about mental health and, for the first time, combines traditional advertising with bespoke content across print, digital and social media through partnerships with IPC Media and Channel 4.

Over the next two weeks a 30-second ad will air exclusively on Channel 4, which last year collaborated with the charity for its '4 Goes Mad' mental health season. The ad will subsequently run on a range of other channels.

Meanwhile, IPC will work with Time to Change to create exclusive features across magazines such as Marie Claire, Now, Nuts, NME, Cycling Weekly and Rugby World.

From 21 January, national and regional radio stations such as Global Radio's Heart, XFM and Capital will run an ad featuring the voice of Gary Beadle, the actor best known for playing Paul Trueman in ‘EastEnders’.

Sue Baker, director of Time to Change, said: "To remove the stigma that still plagues this very common health issue, we need more conversations and to keep this momentum going. We have generations of misunderstanding and prejudice to overturn."

The campaign was devised and managed by MediaCom Beyond Advertising and the creative was produced by The Outfit.

Nick Cohen, head of MediaCom Beyond Advertising, said: "Challenging stigma around mental health issues proved an exciting brief and one where we can really affect behavioural change."

Niall Murdoch, joint managing director of The Outfit, said they cast people who had particularly "inspiring stories" who could offer "very simple advice to help us find ways to make it easier to talk more openly about mental health".

Channel 4 was the first national media organisation to sign up to the Time to Change campaign to address mental health stigma and discrimination in the workplace.

Time to Change launched its first programme in 2007. The initiative found there was an 11.5% reduction in the average levels of mental health discrimination reported in 2011 compared to 2008.

Prior to a review called last year Time to Change's creative work was produced by Dare.

Time to Change's media planning and buying was handled by Hypernaked and the7stars until the initiative was awarded government funding in October 2011.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk