Following a challenging year as the Coronavirus crisis continues, ITV once again partnered with YoungMinds, Mind and SAMH in the next iteration of Britain Get Talking — the UK’s most recognised mental health campaign.

To support this important message of listening to our loved ones this Christmas, ITV launched a powerful print campaign to further encourage the nation to check-in on their loved ones.

Britain Get Talking originally launched in October 2019 as part of ITV’s wider Better Health commitment to encourage 10 million people to take action to look after their mental or physical health. Since it launched, Britain Get Talking has encouraged the UK public to take over 100 million actions to support their mental wellbeing.

The beautifully art directed suite shows the negative space left behind from an unwrapped Christmas present— but instead of a gift, we see different paragraphs of copy revealed inside sharing a poignant message encouraging the gift of listening to our loved ones this festive season.

The copy reads differently across each execution and is all about how the perfect gift this festive period isn’t a fancy watch, won’t cost a penny and isn’t hard to wrap. Instead, the gift of a few minutes, the present of our presence, is the most generous thing we can give to the ones we love. The messaging leaves us with the proposition that, after the last couple of years, we all need an ear and to give yours this Christmas.

The mental health crisis has become increasingly acute in recent years; rates of depression more than doubled during the pandemic. As a result, mental health has remained a key focus for ITV, who seek to put the power of TV behind behaviour change campaigns that make a real difference to how we all take action to look after our wellbeing.

This work aimed to remind the public of the importance of listening to loved ones this Christmas. Listening has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety levels, and is particularly important in helping others to open up about their problems. A recent survey conducted by ITV revealed 45% struggle to open up about their problems because they’re worried they’ll be judged. Over 1 in 10 young people don’t open up about their problems at Christmas because they’re worried they won’t be listened to.

Britain Get Talking is the UK’s most recognised mental health campaign. A big part of this is down to how we have always been disruptive with our message, whether that’s stopping live TV, doing a text only interview or press ads that look like the detritus of an opened gift rather than normal advertising. It’s easy to hide from hard conversations and not take the time to listen to one another, so the reminders to have them and actively listen need to be surprising.

The executions ran for one month across magazines and newspapers in a bid to encourage the nation to take action and listen to their loved ones to improve mental wellness. Purposefully designed to play with negative space to stand out from text articles in print. This disruptive approach aimed to stop people in their tracks to take a moment and read the poignant messages.

Britain Get Talking launched in 2019 as part of ITV’s ongoing objective to encourage 10 million people to take action and improve their mental or physical health by 2023. When the pandemic hit, ITV continuously ran campaigns around mental wellbeing and put Britain Get Talking back at the heart of the channel.

Since Britain Get Talking launched just over two years ago, it has encouraged the UK to take over 100 million meaningful actions to improve their mental wellbeing. And last year the campaign also raised £1.4 million to support mental health charity helplines, including donations from the Department of Health and Social Care.

Britain Get Talking continues to be the UK’s most recognised mental health campaign