Following the devastating Black Summer Bushfires in 2020, NRMA Insurance donated $2 million to suicide prevention charity Lifeline Australia, to help the organisation continue to provide essential mental health services to those impacted by this natural disaster.

Beyond providing purely financial support, NRMA Insurance wanted to help raise awareness of the deluge of calls Lifeline was still receiving to its dedicated bushfire line, the wider issue of mental health and how natural disasters such as bushfires can leave a lasting psychological legacy.

Our brief was to develop an original and authentic earned-first campaign that would generate mass national awareness of this issue. Invisible Fire was the campaign idea we developed. (it was not an idea we inherited and amplified).

The ‘Invisible Fires’ campaign was born out of the desire of both organisations (NRMA Insurance and

Lifeline Australia) to raise awareness of those still suffering the hidden (mental) trauma of the Black Summer Fires.

To avoid ‘triggering’ negative emotions within those impacted by the fires we decided against using actual footage of the fires or showing the victims and instead adopted a more lateral approach to our content. The concept was to illustrate the connection between the physical fires and the mental trauma they had caused.

At the heart of the campaign was a film which used both pre-existing and original MRI scan footage of a human brain experiencing trauma, this then morphed into a heat map of Australia showing the bushfire activity, this was accompanied by a moving poem written by a leading Australian musician.

The key insight came from Lifeline's call data - we discovered that a year after the bushfires had ended, Lifeline’s dedicated bushfire support line was still receiving up to 400 calls, every day, highlighting the enduring nature of the mental health trauma caused. We knew this statistic would be a compelling PR hook.

Insurance is a low interest category - you only want to engage with it when you have a problem. Our challenge is always how to get the NRMA Insurance brand into wider culture and the media environments where it would not usually appear. As a mass market brand our target was broad, however we particularly wanted to reach a younger demographic that would be the next generation of customers. To achieve this we knew we would have to engage talent who resonated with our desired audiences - hence our choice of Julia Stone.

The crafting of the execution was critical to the project, with each element fastidiously observed.

The animation used a combination of pre-existing and original MRI scan footage and incorporated data from satellite images of bushfires and clinical studies of brain trauma. We recorded Julia delivering the poem and used motion tracking to lip sync it to the vision. We incorporated sonic elements from real MRI machines in the soundscape of the final video to add depth.

The campaign came to life through the ‘Invisible Fires’ film which featured in paid online video environments (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) and in cinemas in bushfire affected areas. Audio only versions of the poem featured on podcasts.

The PR attention the campaign garnered was significant and was assisted by having a well known artist at its core.

The campaign commenced March 2021 running for 4 weeks.

By identifying a powerful statistic and dramatising it in a unique and engaging way, with a carefully selected partner to create authenticity, we achieved massive earned cut-through and awareness.

In total we achieved 192 pieces of coverage with a potential reach of over 38 million. All coverage was positive in nature.

Key news pieces included:

Three newspaper stories (Courier Mail, Herald Sun, The Mercury) along with national online News Corp syndication.

Multiple TV and radio segments including ABC National News, Ch 7 News, Ch 9 News and Studio 10.

Music outlets NME and The Music Network.

Extensive regional media coverage: 150 online rural stories generated across the country.

NRMA Insurance owned social channels:

1.1M views on YouTube, with an average view time of 1:15 minutes

824,175 reach on Facebook, with 19,334 views at 75%