For fear of being judged, mental health is a subject that people often shy away from. Bell, Canada’s leading telecommunications company, set itself an ambitious goal: break the stigma. How? By inviting people to talk about it through communication channels they use every day: social networks and mobile devices.

Bell Let’s Talk Day was a single-day Canadian campaign that took place on January 28, 2014. On that day, Bell called on the general public to text, tweet, make calls or share dedicated Facebook images. For each action, Bell donated 5 cents to mental health organizations.

To ensure its success, we first launched an awareness campaign on TV, radio and social media that gave a snapshot of mental health and its impact in Canada. A second phase of the campaign then took place through all media channels inviting Canadians to participate one communication action at a time and break the silence and stigma too often associated with mental illness.

On January 28, this important conversation was tracked and properly showcased. Through social media tools, digital OOH signage and our web/mobile sites, Bell gave a dedicated platform for Canadians to speak up against the stigma simply by adding the #BellLetsTalk to their communication actions. And many did…

This campaign raised this sensitive issue to a top-trending topic, but also boosted Bell’s visibility and swayed public opinion in its favor thanks to an initiative that had a real social impact.

Awareness phase: Leveraging mass media and the social web, the awareness phase helped to create social momentum around mental health-related issues and sent the message that Canadians needed to have this important conversation.

Call-to-action phase: It was one thing to create awareness, but we needed people to act. This is what the second phase of the campaign aimed to achieve, showcasing key spokespersons inviting Canadians to join in to help break the stigma on January 28.

Campaign day: On January 28, Bell’s network and devices provided the perfect tools to generate and showcase this important conversation and allowed Canadians to easily get involved. The conversation could be followed online, but also on the street: A team followed the conversation on Twitter and selected the most powerful tweets to be projected on thousands of digital OOH boards across the country.

On January 28, mental health became the most discussed topic in North America. Many public figures – politicians, singers, TV stars and organizations – joined the conversation and asked their followers to take part. Others even shared their own struggle with mental health, inviting people to speak up and reach out for help.

At the end of the day, there were over 109 million communication actions registered, with more than 3 million tweets and 300,000 Facebook shares. #BellLetsTalk was the top-trending hashtag in Canada and third worldwide. Visits to the Bell Let’s Talk page increased by 80% over the previous year. These are impressive stats when we consider that the general public is still reluctant to openly talk about these important issues.

Mental illness was on everyone’s lips that day, all for a total of $5,472,585 raised for the cause (an increase of 14% over the 2013 edition of the campaign).