This work is primarily a media campaign because we managed to sneak a relevant message into to the biggest music streaming services. By changing the artist’s cover art we found a new way to reach our intended audience, making a message appear inside millions of personal playlists – undisturbed by other advertisers. The context of the media channel was also a perfect fit for the message. By appearing on artists’ songs that deal with mental health issues, we managed to deliver an important message with the power of emotions that music gives.

World Mental Health Day is an annual public health campaign in Norway commissioned by The Norwegian Directorate of Health. The campaign aims every year to increase the population's knowledge, understanding, and openness about what strengthens and weakens mental health.

Insight from Statistics Norway can show that 1 in 3 Norwegians felt depressed after the pandemic. Many people struggled with their mental health, and in Norway, the land of the "Jante Law," it’s taboo to talk about it.

This year, World Mental Health Day aimed to use the occasion to reach out to those who are not feeling well, and empower them to speak up about their mental wellbeing. Nobody should have to suffer in silence, and if we get better sharing with each other, it will ultimately improve our mental health.

When our mental health takes a hit, we turn to music. Artists dare to share their mental health struggles, and as listeners, we experience their unique ability to put words to our feelings. Therefore, we partnered with 29 of Norway's biggest artists and their record labels in a unique collaboration.

On World Mental Health Day, October 10th, we infiltrated the world’s largest music platforms with an important message. By changing the artist’s cover art we found a new way to reach our audience, making a message appear inside millions of personal playlists. The message empowered listeners to open up about their mental health, in an undisturbed moment when they needed it the most.

We were visible in Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music, as well as embeds on news articles, messages and blog posts. The message even appeared on listeners’ locked phone screens.

Reaching out to those who are struggling is a challenging task. We are competing for attention on equal footing with larger advertisers with ample budgets – something World Mental Health Day doesn’t have. Therefore, we had to find a clever way to reach out to our target audience.

With "The Mental Advisory Label," we managed to find a much shorter path to those who suffer in silence, in a space where they were more receptive for a mental health message. The media channel also reduced the competition for attention against other advertisers.

Another important part of the strategy was to make it easy for both the artists and their listeners to further spread the message on social media. This could easily be done by sharing the songs directly from the streaming services, making the message appear in the feeds of the artists' followers.

Together with Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and Playground Music, we selected the biggest artists with personal experiences related to mental health in their music. To ensure that we reached a wide range of people who are not feeling well, it was important to collaborate with artists in different music genres.

On the technical side, we teamed up with the record labels to get access to the artist’s distribution services. Then we hot-swapped cover art with a new artwork. This was done exactly 48 hours before October 10th, to make sure that we were live on the day itself.

In order to emphasize the importance of the message, we took inspiration from a familiar symbol that’s already been on album covers for decades – The Parental Advisory Label.

With 0$ spent on media, we achieved:

- Within the first week we reached over 600,000 unique listeners with the message. These are impressive numbers, considering that Norway's population is 5 million.

- After two weeks we measured 1.8 million streams.

- 4,1 million impressions on social media after the artists and their listeners shared directly from Spotify, Tidal, or Apple Music.

- Spotify embraced the project with a playlist of their own.

- 50% of the artists still feature the message on their cover art.

This work demonstrates the potential of audio platforms in effectively raising mental health awareness. The campaign strategically employs the cover art in streaming services like Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music as media channels. By leveraging the emotive power of music to convey mental health messages, we found an innovative way to reach the intended target audience.