The Ad Council partnered with The Huntsman Mental Health Institute this week to roll out a campaign focused on the nation’s ongoing mental health crisis.
The Love, Your Mind campaign brings together mental health experts and media platforms to help encourage people to take care of their minds as much as they do their close personal relationships with family or friends.
The campaign specifically targets the estimated 70 million Americans who are living with mental health issues but avoid therapy or mental health support due to ingrained beliefs and stigma.
Several PSAs, in both English and Spanish, aim to illustrate the perspective of speaking to your own mind as if it were a close friend or relative – specifically designed to reach Black and Hispanic men, who make up a large portion of that target population.
“I wonder if you know that I want the best for you,” one 60-second video states. “I know you’re going through a lot… You can’t just rebound from everything. I know you’ve been grinding, but how long will you fight solo? I wonder if you know that we can get help. I wonder why we waited so long.”
The campaign directs viewers to the Loveyourmindtoday.org website, which helps delineate some of the emotions and moods associated with mental health concerns — including anger, burnout, loneliness and guilt.
It also allows people to click on various life challenges — like chronic health issues, disabilities, trauma and relationship breakups — to learn how they might impact well-being.
The website offers tangible steps people can take to begin addressing some of the fallout from these issues — as well as resources on how to get professional help.
The Love, Your Mind campaign will roll out across the U.S. through TV, radio and digital channels, including TikTok collaborations.
Advertising agencies FCB New York and FCB Chicago were involved in the production of the campaign’s creative assets.
“Supporting your mental health must be normalized,” said Mike Williams, executive creative director of FCB New York, in a statement. “It must — because your mind is the most valuable asset you have and caring for it, nurturing it, strengthening it, can ultimately get you to where you want to go in life.”
The campaign features TV and podcast personalities Stephen A. Smith and Eric Bigger, who will also be discussing mental health on their platforms.
Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council, pointed to the nation’s overall mental health crisis in a statement, noting it has been laid bare by the challenges of the last several years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, economic uncertainty and the ongoing movement for racial justice.
“With the ‘Love, Your Mind’ campaign, we are offering people inspiration and actionable steps they can take to make their mental health a priority and experience how that benefits every area of their lives,” Sherman added.
