Given the UK’s reluctance to discuss suicide openly, PR was an essential tool in forcing the issue into the national conversation about suicide prevention.

A multi-faceted PR campaign spread the simple idea at the heart of The Last Photo, across more than 1 billion “opportunities to see”, generating column inches whilst also driving tangible action towards suicide prevention.

In 2018, we created Project 84 for mental health partners CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) and ITV (UK’s largest commercial TV station) putting suicide firmly on the national agenda

Six years later, following years of Covid lockdowns and an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, the UK suicide rate was rising at an unprecedented rate. New data revealed that 125 people were taking their own lives, every week.

Talking can save lives. But people weren’t talking.

The isolation caused by the pandemic desensitised the public to rising mortality figures, regardless of their cause. Just stating the problem wasn’t enough.

Long-term mental health partners ITV & CALM sought to create a new kind of campaign that would humanise the statistics, by showing what “suicidal behaviour” really looks like. Not just to raise awareness, or to shock, but to incite action. To get people to ask “Are you really ok?”

People think they know what suicidal people look like: crying, desperate, defeated.

But the truth is far from that. People closest to them don’t always realise they need to know to look deeper.

In response, we created The Last Photo. In a broadcast first, ITV - the UK’s largest commercial TV station, in partnership with CALM - launched a gut-wrenching campaign. On “The happiest day of the year”, a central London portrait exhibition was revealed featuring pictures of happy, smiling, young people. ITV leveraged the power and reach of prime time show “This Morning” to reveal that these were the final photographs ever taken of people who had died by suicide.

With the simple message: “Suicidal doesn’t always look suicidal.”

The idea was designed, timed and placed to draw unprecedented media attention to the issue, triggering a conversation to match the scale of the UK’s suicide crisis.

We were briefed to develop a nationwide awareness campaign to increase conversations about suicide by elevating The Last Photo through earned comms.

The aim: speak to as many people as possible across the UK.

The insight: "suicide doesn't always look suicidal", and behind every suicide statistic is a real person, each with their own personality and reasons for taking that final step.

We created a suite of visual and video assets alongside commissioned YouGov research to offer newsworthy data to add additional weight and context to the issue.

Across various outlets, we delivered this first as a live piece on ITV's This Morning as the campaign landing page went live with QR codes on each image (and supporting DOOH) alongside a live phone-in, and providing vital practical support and advice.

Then, earned campaign assets went live, delivered via images and videos showcasing the exhibition and its meaning to media nationally.

On “The happiest day of the year”, 50 large photos of happy people appeared on London’s Southbank. No logos. No information other than a name and age.

Once the exhibition piqued interest, it was announced live on ITV’s national show, This Morning. They were the last photos of suicidal people.

At this point, we went live with our editorial campaign via editorial assets delivering images of the exhibition and its meaning. We also worked with the families of those featured to convey the message behind the campaign through editorial.

310 broadcast pieces, every major UK national newspaper (22 pieces in total) and 360 pieces of regional and consumer coverage. Alongside 4,527,792 organic social impressions, 140,998 organic social engagements across owned. Through earned media – principally from influencer posts of the exhibition – 5,934,538 impressions (+960% vs CALM’s six-month average) were delivered.

This campaign delivered remarkable results through editorial coverage.

Over 800 pieces delivered over 1 billion Opportunities to See through editorial coverage alone.

100% of the editorial pieces were positive in tone, and 85% of pieces carried a key prevention message – whether "Start a conversation", "Talking helps", "Ask twice" or "It can be hard to spot the signs".

Reaching over 90% of the UK population (equivalent to anyone who consumes editorial news in a given week).

'Brand buzz' also increased by 2% in the month post-campaign, suggesting impact and memorability for the campaign.

17 million viewers through paid and pro-bono media, 1 billion earned PR impressions and 6 million social impressions across channels. There was a 40% newsletter open rate (17% increase against CALM six-month average), and 95% of traffic to the CALM website from brand ambassadors' content was from new users.

8 in 10 visits to the website were new users (13% above average).

A 51% average completion rate for Suicidal Doesn't Always Look Suicidal video (above industry average), and three in ten passers-by scanned a QR code at the Southbank exhibition.

60% of people asked understood the central message of the campaign to be that "The signs of suicide aren't always obvious"

A five-fold increase in newsletter sign-ups year-on-year, and CALM gained 17,801 new social followers through the campaign.

Donations increased by 400% year-on-year.

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

While conversations around general mental health have recently become more open, suicide is still a heavily stigmatised and deeply misunderstood topic in British culture.

And yet, with 125 people dying each week and 1 in 5 Britons claiming to have had suicidal thoughts, its effects are felt everywhere.

As the UK’s largest commercial TV station, ITV sees tackling this as one of its core CSR targets.

Given the British public’s reluctance to talk about suicide openly, disruptive and headling-grabbing campaigns are one of the strongest tools at our disposal to force the topic into national conversation.

This agenda forms the basis of ITV’s partnership with CALM - a partnership which has yielded some of the world’s most effective and creative campaigns to improve the nation’s mental wellbeing and prevent suicide.