Australia is facing a “Mental Health Epidemic” and men in particular are doing it tough. Statistics show that 1 in 8 men will experience depression in their lifetime and 1 in 5 will suffer from anxiety. But men are notoriously reluctant to reach out for help and talk about their feelings when they’re struggling. Instead, they try to “man up” and keep their problems to themselves. The consequences of this are horrifying: every day in Australia an average of seven men take their own life. Suicide is in fact our leading cause of death in men aged 15 to 49, making male suicide Australia’s #1 public health problem. Our objective, in collaboration with mens mental fitness charity Gotcha4life, is to begin to normalise men talking about what they’re going through and seeking help when they need it. If we can achieve this, we will save lives.

If men in Australia find it so hard to talk about their feelings and ask for help, it’s because our traditional narrative of masculinity says that men have to be strong, that men keep a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity, that they DON’T ask for help when they’re struggling, that they DON’T talk about their feelings, that Boys DON’T Cry. We set out to help free men from this suffocating and dangerous narrative by turning these DON’Ts into DO’s. In 1979, legendary band The Cure released their iconic single Boys Don’t Cry; in 2021 we transformed it into Boys Do Cry - an anthem to help stop male suicide.

It’s notoriously difficult to reach and hold the attention of young Aussie males, as they’re sceptical of marketing and tune out things they don’t want to hear. On top of this, we want them to do more than just passively observe. We want them to actively re-evaluate their perceptions and start a tough conversation about something that makes them uncomfortable – their own feelings and mental health. We knew we had to create a conversation that they wouldn’t just be responsive to, but felt compelled to carry on. Music is not just culture-shaping, it’s also one of the few places where men feel comfortable sharing their emotions. Using its conventions we created and filmed a song to carry our message, encouraging our audience to reach out and share it with one another in order to normalise and encourage help-seeking behaviour.

With the blessing of Robert Smith and The Cure, we rewrote the lyrics, with indigenous Australian artist Dallas Woods contributing a rap inspired by his experiences with suicide in his community. We brought together a diverse group of men aged 12 to 75 representing Australia’s broad multicultural population to perform the song, and created a 3:48 minute music video that lands our campaign line: WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, GET TALKING. The video launched on social channels, with PR outreach garnering airplay on national television. We took over radio adbreaks with a 3:20 minute audio version of the performance, and cut-down versions of the song and video are running as radio,TV and online ads. OOH, press and banner executions tackle the traditional “commandments” of masculinity head on, transforming age-old DONT’s into DOs. All driving to a website which provides tools for having potential life saving conversations.

In its first six weeks, the campaign has already struck a chord, not just in Australia but worldwide. Our earned media and social media reach is close to 65 million. But the most meaningful measure of success for this campaign is whether it prompts men to get talking so they never reach the stage where they see suicide as the only solution to end their suffering. It’s going to take time to bring about this vital cultural and behavioural change, but an academic study of the Boys do Cry campaign conducted by the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Mental Health provides a clear indication that the campaign has the power to shift the dial. Preliminary findings of the study, carried out with 500 men aged 18 to 87 show that those who watched the Boys do Cry video had increased intentions to seek help for mental health difficulties.