Mental illness ad campaings: sexy, edgy or emotional?

Posted on 09/07/2009 | 0 Comments

In the past few weeks I've come across several advertising campaigns aimed at raising awareness about mental health problems. Two in particular focusing on Autism and Eating Disorders caught my attention (you can see why below). Advertisers know what "sticks" when it comes to marketing: sex, shock and emotion. These approaches can be effective ways to sell products or promote a brand identity - but how well do they transfer into the world social awareness? Or for that matter mental health? SEXY The people at Sociological Images alerted me to this Rethinking Autism ad campaign. The RA site maintains that:

"All too often in the world of autism, celebrity and sex appeal are used to promote pseudo-science that exploits autistic people, their family members and the public. We decided to put those very same factors to work in service of the truth."

This is a clever ad. It's information is scientifically-based and it captures your attention. But is it effective? While I get the tongue-in-cheek reference that Autism has become a "sexy" topic of discussion, I question whether the core message gets buried beneath a sea of lingerie. The Rethinking Autism website claims to want to "change the conversation one video at a time", but are we changing the conversation towards Autism and debunking pseudo-science or does the ad instead meander towards a debate about the objectification of women as sex objects. If the latter then the message is lost. EDGY Next up is a series of ads from the Looking Glass Foundation for Eating Disorders based in Vancouver BC. The ads are edgy alright - but their message is misleading. The tagline in the ads is "Not every note is a suicide note" - which falsely implies that eating disorders are a method of suicide. We know this is not true. So while the ads are effective in shocking us, they do little to advance discourse because of their false message - in fact they may even perpetuate the myth that eating disorders are motivated by suicidal intent. EMOTIONAL Finally an anti-stigma ad campaign from the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia (see video on their homepage). The ad uses personal narratives, emotional music and dream-like backgrounds to tell a story. In under a minute the video captures the pervasive stigma that accompanies mental illnesses, touches on the scientific basis of mental disorders as brain disorders, points to the need to improved resources to meet the needs of those living with mental illnesses and challenges the viewer to talk more openly about mental illness and mental health. Effective doesn't have to be flashy and this ad is a great example of the power of emotion and story to communicate an important message. ~ David Venn

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