Winner
#Savethemale - raising awareness and money to prevent male suicide
Summary of work
Mental health is profoundly important to quality of life and the capacity to cope with life’s ups and downs. Suicide is the single biggest killer of men aged under 45 and represents 76% of all suicides in 2014. Despite this harrowing statistic, public awareness of male suicide has remained incredibly low.
To address this, CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) worked with Hanover to devise and implement a social media strategy aimed at educating the general public around male suicide while driving support and donations for the charity’s work around CALM’s BBC Lifeline Appeal and International Men’s Day. We used statistics provided by the charity to create content and engaged with high profile advocates via social media to maximise the reach and impact of the campaign.
The campaign gained massive support, with tweets from high profile figures including Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais and Norman Lamb MP, as well as a 700% increase in Facebook fans, helping to secure widespread media coverage. The BBC Lifeline Appeal raised over £22,000, one of the largest amounts raised by any charity through the appeal. The overall campaign resulted in a 9% increase in awareness among the general public from the previous year.
Judges’ comments
Here we saw a difficult topic tackled in an appropriate and sensitive way with content that was really well-tailored to its target audience. The strategy was built around an opportunity with BBC Lifeline and created a true social buzz and wide ranging media coverage that changed attitudes. The increase in awareness stats was impressive, as was the campaign’s ability to raise funds that mean more people are staffing the helpline, which could lead to a lasting legacy.
