4 out of 5 Canadians do not believe that mental health is as important as physical health, despite the fact that more than half of all Canadians will experience a mental illness in any given year – devastating lives and costing the country billions of dollars.

In order to begin a cultural shift in how Canadians perceive mental health, CAMH launched a new brand platform and awareness campaign that targeted millennials with a powerful and compelling message to inspire change in the way we fund, treat and view mental illness.

This was CAMH’s biggest and most ambitious campaign in its history with a budget of $1.45M inclusive of fees media and production.

Our new brand platform, Mental Health Is Health, confronted injustices head on by questioning why society treats mental and physical health so differently, highlighting that there should be no difference in the perception, recognition and treatment of mental illness.

Research confirmed that fewer than 50% of Canadians think mental health is personally relevant. Even more pointedly, they don't see mental illnesses as legitimate diseases requiring medical treatment, perhaps because many conditions lack recognizable symptoms. This creates immense shame and guilt for those affected, and holds people back from seeking treatment, or even from sharing their pain with friends or family.

No other form of illness faces the challenge of having to fight stigma as well as the disease itself. Mental illness is met with judgement rather than understanding. Society has a dismissive view toward mental illness based on the discriminatory belief that people experiencing mental illness aren’t sick, they’re just choosing to be lazy or weak. This shaped the core strategy of the campaign: confront society’s prejudices by establishing the medical legitimacy of mental illness and that it is not a choice people make.

Provocative billboards, transit shelter posters and social media posts posed pointed questions, such as, “Why do some illnesses get treatment but others get judgment?”

A branded content series featured real stories of Canadians who experienced the gap between society’s views of physical illness and mental illness. One woman shared the story of receiving less support for her mental illness than for her three bouts with cancer, while retired NHL goaltender Corey Hirsch opened up about his debilitating struggles during his NHL career.

A television/social media execution confronted assumptions by depicting intense physical symptoms that are, in fact, caused by mental illness.

The #MentalHealthIsHealth hashtag focused attention around the cause and encouraged engagement.

Among Millennials, the campaign has already challenged outdated perceptions, showing statistically significant increases in the following areas:

• “Mental health is a key component of a person's overall health” grew from 77% to 86%

• “Friends and family have been more candid about expressing their mental health issues” grew from 53% to 71%

The hashtag #MentalHealthIsHealth is still garnering stories and shares across Canada with over 26.6K hashtag uses, and generating over 70 million earned impressions.

Within the first two weeks of launch, the 30 second film on YouTube achieved a 51% view through rate, which is an astonishing 188% above industry norms. Further, the longer-form films were watched in their entirety by 22% of the audience – 340% above the benchmark.

Online donations increased by 41% percent year-over-year during the campaign period.