Headspace tackles youth mental issues in new national campaign via DraftFCB Melbourne

Headspace, the nation’s leading provider of youth mental health services, has partnered with DraftFCB, Melbourne to create a national marketing campaign to help tackle mental issues facing young people such as depression, exam stress, anxiety and relationship break ups.

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The campaign uses images and language similar to vintage boxing posters to identify young people’s feelings like ‘Avalanche of Exams’, the ‘Pressure to Pretend’ and ‘Broken Heart’, and tells people that with headspace in their corner, young people can overcome these personal issues.

The new campaign officially launches today and will be rolled out in regional and metropolitan areas, focusing on headspace centres across the country. The campaign will include radio, TV, online and print outlets as well as ambient advertising in universities, shopping centres and bus shelters.

The campaign is aimed at 12 – 25 year olds with a focus on young men who wouldn’t ordinarily seek help for mental health issues. Over the next 6-12 months DraftFCB will continue to work with Headspace to increase the number of concepts to target other groups including Indigenous, culturally and linguistically diverse young people and parents.

Mat Garbutt, creative director at DraftFCB Melbourne, said the key to this campaign was to change the act of talking about mental health from a perceived admission of weakness into an act of strength: “By presenting mental issues as a foe to be faced, we want to empower young people to tackle them head on, but also make sure they understand they don’t have to face these problems alone.

“We found that when young people are going through a tough time, they need someone in their corner and that’s the role headspace plays,” said Garbutt.

Headspace CEO Chris Tanti explained how important it is that young people seek help when there are going through a tough time: “We know that young people have various issues going on in their lives, like relationship break ups and exam stress, but they don’t always associate these with needing to get support. Our aim is to have them understand that no matter how big or small the issue might be, headspace is here to help.

“This is the largest awareness campaign we have embarked on to date and we’re looking forward to seeing more young people seeking help and using headspace services as a result,” said Tanti.

Client: Headspace

Animation: Iloura