The creative idea revolves around showing someone who is suffering from a disease that society takes very seriously: cancer. In the video, friends and family members talk to a cancer patient with the same dismissive phrases that people actually use when talking to people with depression. The woman is told, “snap out of it”, “just go outside, you’ll be fine”, “can we stop with the pity party” and so on. These words take an emotional toll on the cancer patient. They also take an emotional toll on the audience; people are consistently shocked at the harsh, dismissive comments.

That’s when we reveal the twist—this video is not about cancer at all. At the end of the film, we make a simple point: You wouldn’t talk to a cancer patient this way, so don’t talk this way to someone with depression—which is also a potentially fatal illness.

The team had only 2 weeks to execute the film. The PSA debuted via a soft launch in November. It quickly received celebrity endorsements from Mariel Hemingway, and was even discussed on Fox’s Good Day New York morning show. The PSA then lived digitally before receiving donated media time from broadcast vendors in the Tulsa, San Francisco, Myrtle Beach, and New York markets. The PSA also was placed via donated time on Hulu, and entered over 1,800 doctor’s offices nationally through vendor Context Media Health. After entering the marketplace softly, the ad quickly was noticed around the world as a stigma-changer, receiving recognition as the “Best 5 Ads of the Week – Worldwide” on AdForum, was distributed with article coverage on Upworthy, and got traction through Facebook, spreading virally around the world as thousands and thousands of people shared the message.

The human impact was enormous, especially on sufferers—who shared (and shared and shared) the video:

• “Oh my god. Someone finally got it. Thank you – whoever this is. I feel validated emotionally for the first time. Twenty seven years into my life.”

• “This is amazing. We need to stop talking like this to people who have depression!”

• “Someone FINALLY said what I wish I’d known how to.”

Our campaign accomplished its awareness objective in a big way, reaching over 18 million people on Facebook. Response was huge, and the Hope for Depression Facebook page went from 400 page likes to over 35,000. We also inspired people to take action and learn more about how to help. Hope for Depression Research Foundation’s website saw unprecedented website activity with traffic increasing 367% and time spent on the site up 360%. Additionally, 88% of these website visitors were new users.