ITV interrupted 5.2 million viewers during Saturday night TV with the first-ever text interview. The purposefully awkward & uncomfortable moment showed the importance of having better quality conversations and marked the return of the broadcaster's renowned mental health initiative Britain Get Talking.

To further encourage better conversations with disruptive reminders, Uncommon created a powerful suite of print executions. Pairing clever copy with manipulated everyday objects, from a scrunched up receipt from yesterday's food shop to a car parking ticket.

Conversations can be hard, but this work aims to show that even the simplest of activities, like cooking in the kitchen together or planning a long walk at the weekend, can go a long way in helping create the perfect time, space and opportunity to open up and talk to each other properly. We wanted to share this message disrupting the print medium.

To support this disruptive on-air moment, we launched an equally disruptive print series. It’s easy to hide from the hard conversations, so the reminders to have them needed to be surprising. Using the medium of print we conveyed powerful copy mimicking the fonts and visuals of relatable objects.

The executions pair clever copy with manipulated everyday items; from a scrunched-up receipt from yesterday’s food shop, an open cookbook, a folded up OS map and car parking tickets gathering dust in your glove compartment.

In and amongst these items we come across regularly are hidden messages, encouraging better conversations in those everyday moments, which might not initially be used to have a more meaningful chat with a friend, partner or family member.

The mental health crisis has become increasingly acute in recent years; rates of depression more than doubled during Covid-19. Mental wellbeing has remained a key focus for ITV, putting the power of TV behind behaviour change campaigns that make a real difference. Conversations can be hard but this work aims to show that even the simplest of activities can go a long way in helping create the perfect space to open up and talk properly.

Britain Get Talking is the UK’s most recognised mental health campaign. A big part of this is down to how we have always been disruptive with our message, whether that’s stopping live TV, doing a text only interview or press ads that look like the detritus of a day out rather than normal advertising. It’s easy to hide from hard conversations, so the reminders to have them need to be surprising.

The executions ran for one month across magazines and newspapers in the UK in a bid to encourage the nation to take action and have more meaningful conversations to improve their mental wellness.

The executions were purposefully designed to play with negative space in a stripped back approach - in order to stand out from heavy text articles in the print placements. This disruptive approach aimed to stop people in their tracks to take a moment and read the poignant messages.

Britain Get Talking launched in 2019 as part of ITV’s ongoing objective to encourage 10 million people to take action and improve their mental or physical health by 2023. When the pandemic hit, ITV continuously ran campaigns around mental wellbeing and put Britain Get Talking back at the heart of the channel.

Since Britain Get Talking launched just over two years ago, over 100 million meaningful conversations have happened as a result of the campaign and last year the campaign also raised £1.4 million to support mental health charity helplines, including donations from the Department of Health and Social Care.

Britain Get Talking continues to be the UK’s most recognised mental health campaign.