We needed to create maximum noise for a problem that goes largely unspoken about, male suicide. Having a newsworthy story was at the heart of our brief, and the idea was designed to cause impact over a single 24hr news cycle around World Mental Health Day.

The stigma of mental health and mental health awareness in general is a restriction in itself, we wanted to get people talking about it. We asked them not 'to bottle it up'.

We need more men to speak to CALM and an ongoing shift in the culture of masculinity. Where do you start? We created a fake product to talk about a real issue. Reality star Chris Hughes, launched ‘L’Eau De Chris’, a mineral water infused with his own tears. Stupid, right? With the public and media in a frenzy, he revealed the real message on World Mental Health Day; L’Eau de Chris is ludicrous, don’t bottle up your feelings.

In the days before World Mental Health Day (10th Oct), Hughes posted a series of teasers on Instagram with the message; ‘Launches 10.10.17’. Then a glossy launch film – an over the top pastiche borrowing cues from the perfume category shot by Rankin –released on 9th Oct, alongside national OOH and Print to advertise the launch of his new project with Topman. All touchpoints pointed to the TOPMAN website where the product was listed as ‘sold out’. On 10th Oct, at a press event streamed live on Facebook, Chris revealed the charity’s message. That day, all campaign creative was swapped out and replaced with the call to action: #DontBottleItUp

120m Social impressions in the first 48hrs

91 articles of earned media covering the story

An 1800% increase of in traffic to the CALM website from 18-24 year olds

Suicides prevented by CALM’s webchat doubled in the month of the campaign

The use of celebrity was key to our strategy to drive fame and appeal amongst young men. Chris Hughes was famed in Love Island – the reality TV summer hit – for his physique, but more importantly for shedding a tear and had since talked candidly about his struggles with anxiety. This mix of popularity and press attention, masculinity and openness gave us the ideal candidate to deliver our creative idea. Leveraging Hughes’ massive following on Social channels to seed the activity, meant that we could engage our young male audience on the platforms they were using.

Despite mental health being talked about more in the media, suicide remains the biggest killer of men under 45 years old in the UK. Research commissioned by CALM showed that 84% of men in the UK say they bottle up their emotions. The brief was simple, get young men - a typically difficult to reach audience for the charity - to start talking about mental health issues. The objective was to drive maximum awareness of CALM and provoke a debate about the kind of emotions men can reveal. All without being too worthy, as this is when blokes typically switch off and stop listening.