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Client: Calm
Product: Calm
Title: Invisible Opponent
Media: TV, VOD & Online
Country: UK
Date Of Campaign: 16th July 2021

Background: The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is leading a movement against suicide. Every week 125 people in the UK take their own lives. And 75% of all UK suicides are male.CALM exists to change this, by opening up conversations with those that need support and by raising awareness of its helpline.We wanted to use the context of sport – an area where men are more comfortable expressing their emotions – to start a new conversation about the impact of mental health.

Idea: One of the things that makes mental health so challenging is that it’s invisible. The idea was to position mental health as ‘The Invisible Opponent’, which would be achieved by removing Deontay Wilder (Fury’s opponent) from the footage of his recent fight. We used an insightful, memorable truth that made sense of what people were seeing: “Sometimes the toughest opponents are the ones you can’t see.” By shining a light on Tyson’s story, we hoped to challenge the misconception that suffering from and talking about mental health is a sign of weakness.

Results: The film achieved significant reach and powerful social impact. Social stats in July were the first barometer of success, with 3m impressions (+150%), 71,367 engagements (+358%), and audience growth of 2,922 (+95.5%). Then came the positive impact across website and calls. On the day of launch, impressions were up +1601%, engagements were up +1894%, and link clicks were up +1816% vs previous day. Over the course of July (NB the film only ran from 16-25th) total monthly website users were up +47.4%. But most importantly, between 12-18th July calls to the call centre – the biggest indicator of prevented suicides – were up 108% YOY.