125 people take their own lives in the UK every week. Following years of lockdowns and entering an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, an urgent nationwide conversation about suicide was needed.

But how do you kickstart that conversation in a post-pandemic world in which 125 deaths a week suddenly feels much smaller?

You embark on a new kind of campaign. One that swaps horrifying figures for the human faces of real people lost to suicide.

That focuses not just on creating awareness, but inciting action.

And most importantly, that places the emphasis for suicide prevention not on politicians or broadcasters, but on people all up and down the country talking about suicide openly, unreservedly, without fear or shame.

Suicide doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t have a target audience.

We needed to equip as many people as possible across the United Kingdom, to prevent suicide by educating the public about suicidal behaviour and providing practical tools for intervention.

Having identified a deep-rooted problem in the nation’s perception of suicide, ITV would employ a well-used entertainment hook to capture nationwide attention – the twist. A technique in which a person - led by their own assumptions - begins to view things one way, only to find the truth is something they’d never have considered.

We’d then turn this nationwide attention into local engagement, placing the campaign message directly into affected communities across the country. Adapting each ad to feature people from the area that were likely to be recognised or previously read about in local forums and papers.

On 20 June, we unveiled an installation of 50 smiling portraits on London’s South Bank – with no mention of CALM, ITV or suicide. The exhibition was trailed by ITV as part of a week of programming.

Visitors and viewers saw people living what appeared to be happy lives.

On 22 June, presenters Holly and Phil revealed the truth live on ITV’s flagship breakfast show, This Morning.

This revelation was the launchpad for a multichannel campaign. Press and OOH featured simple executions of a single photo alongside the reveal that it was taken days before the subject died. TV, Cinema and Social featured films which did the same, using personal home videos.

These channels extended the campaign’s scale and reach. But with portraits specifically placed in the communities where the subject had lived, we brought the problem home. From distant statistic to tangible issue affecting those you might know.

The primary goal was to kickstart a national conversation about the true nature of suicide. In that, it was an unprecedented success.

The exhibition attracted 500,000+ individual visitors, 35% of whom scanned QR codes to engage further, spending an average of more than 9 minutes per visit. Throughout the week, individuals left unprompted photos of their deceased loved ones at the exhibition.

The reveal on This Morning was seen by 1.48 million people.

For 48 hours following the campaign reveal, the campaign film was the most talked-about video on Reddit globally - triggering a huge, constructive conversation about suicidal behaviour.

In total the campaign achieved 1.6 billion impressions.

Social listening revealed online conversations around suicide rose 33% during the campaign.

And despite not being a primary objective, we saw a 400% YoY increase in donations to CALM.

Most importantly, in the 6 months following the campaign, CALM prevented 161 suicides.