Background: In 2023, the Australian government named suicide as the leading cause of death for Gen Z. They are also the least likely to call Lifeline. As Australia’s longest-running support service, Lifeline needed to find a way to be relevant to the most at-risk generation, especially one that are known to be less and less inclined to use the call function on their phone.

Important context: Lifeline is Australia's longest running support service for those in crisis. While there are many mental health charities in the market, Lifeline is the only one that provides a number that those in crisis can reach out to for immediate support and counselling. Their 11 13 14 number has saved millions of Australian lives in its 60 years of being live.

Ruel, in the context of Australia, is a massive sensation, especially for young people. He was the youngest ever ARIA award winner (The Australian Grammys), has multiple hits in the youth-led national Hottest 100 countdown, and has over 4 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

To ensure they were top of mind, Lifeline worked with international teen idol and mental health advocate, Ruel, to write and release an exclusive never-before-heard song about the importance of reaching out. The catch? The only way to hear the highly-anticipated song was via a dedicated phone line, prompting association to their life-saving 13 11 14 support line.

With Gen Z being the least likely generation to call Lifeline for help, we needed to find a way to connect with them and make a dated organisation feel relevant to one of the youngest audiences. On top of this, normalize the behaviour of using a growingly uncool form of communication - a phone line. No mean feat. However, looking at what Gen Z are passionate about, we knew we had to tap into the most influential medium of all - music.

In collaboration with Lifeline, Ruel wrote a song called ‘The Weight’ with lyrics that highlighted the importance of reaching out and calling for help such as ‘Just take the weight off your shoulders for a while, and put it on mine’ and ‘just call for help’. And in a world-first, the song wasn’t released on Spotify, radio or even TikTok, but on the very thing that could save their lives, a simple phone line. On top of this, the song underwent special mixing and mastering to ensure the sound had as much impact as possible for those hearing it on the phone line.

To create hype, they promoted the track just like any other record release. From street posters, to the PR interview circuit, to advertising on music platforms where fans listen most - Lifeline had young Aussies from all over reaching for their phones.

Not only did The Release Line get people listening, but talking as well. The phone-line took over youth-lead media, generating a reach of 21.7m, 21 pieces of coverage, with 5.7m impressions on paid/donated media and 100% positive sentiment (not to mention going crazy on Ruel’s 1.2m-following Instagram page), giving Lifeline a significant brand lift and preference as the go-to support service for young people. The best result? 1000’s of Gen Z’s connecting with Lifeline for the first time.