Office of National Statistics data revealed that three out of four suicides in the UK are men. So we were tasked by men’s health charity, Movember, to raise awareness around men’s mental wellbeing on World Suicide Prevention Day (10th September). They wanted to educate people on the early signs that may indicate someone is struggling, driving traffic to their ‘Spot the Signs’ landing page; designed to equip people with the knowledge and tools to reach out to loved ones to prevent them reaching crisis point.

We knew from Movember that men struggle to talk to each other about their emotional wellbeing, or asking a friend if they’re ok. But by conducting our own research study, we found that an informal environment, such as at the pub, or watching a football game, is when most men said they'd be most comfortable checking in with a friend.

We launched ‘Sport the Signs’ – turning empty season ticket seats at Rotherham and Darlington F.C - in areas with the highest male suicide rates in the UK - into powerful messages. The bottom of the seats were covered with the Movember moustache and the message: 'Where's My Mate?', meaning when they were empty fans asked themselves where their ‘stadium friend’ was. The seats also featured a QR code which led to the Movember website for information on mental health troubles, and how to reach out.

‘Where’s My Mate?’ appeared on stadium screens throughout both matches to the 13,000-strong crowd.

Then, on World Suicide Prevention Day, we helped Movember become the first charity to use the news push notification to send a message to 1.8 million people’s phones reading: ‘How’s your mate?’.

Sent via MailOnline, people were directed to a sponsored article, encouraging them to check in with friends.

As a charity known for the initiative ‘Movember’, and with limited budget and time, we needed to find a way to generate impactful, positive conversation about mental health around World Suicide Prevention Day.

As key part of that was making sure our media strategy enabled us to land coverage in titles read by our audience – including national, regional (particularly in areas with the highest suicide rates) and consumer media (sporting titles), as well as via social content on channels our audience consumed.

Photography captured at both clubs gave us a variety of assets – lending strongly to picture story and social media cut-through – whilst nationwide research opened up coverage slots across the UK and spokesperson access gave us interview opportunities.

A mix of Northern Clubs taking part (EFL Championship League Rotherham F.C. to National League North Darlington F.C.) also ensured authenticity and strong national and regional media appeal.

Taking photography of the story to sell-in to news and picture desks to secure coverage and raise awareness during World Suicide Prevention week, we also worked with club spokespersons, as well as renowned referee and Rotherham-local, Howard Webb to ensure authenticity and breadth of media coverage in different verticals. This included media interviews as well as quotes and soundbites in our press materials.

Alongside the Sport the Signs activity, we also amplified the MailOnline push notification activity to both trade and tech press to add an additional media vertical to our outreach and increase our reach.

The campaign generated strong awareness results reaching over 595 million people in total, including standalone article coverage in national titles such as Daily Mirror, The Sun, Daily Star and Independent, as well landing in sports titles such as JOE.

100% of coverage included key educational messages – demonstrating the succinctness in message – whilst 95.7% of coverage included branded imagery, showcasing the impact of the assets created.

What’s more, Movember conducted consumer data analysis to demonstrate changes in consideration and confidence in terms of reaching out following the overall campaign period. This showed a significant shift in the UK in level of confidence in recognising the signs of poor mental health, whilst the likelihood of someone checking in on their friend if they noticed signs they were struggling positively increased by 7% from 70% pre-campaign to 77%, post. Furthermore, more than 72% of men 30 – 60 in the UK (Movember’s target audience) were reached at an average frequency of 5.49, whilst across the campaign period, total users on Movember’s website were up 45% YoY with organic search increasing in clicks by 242% YoY.

In fact, the campaign was such a success that it has since been copied with love multiple times by brands including Norwich United.