Situation: Nabs is an organization that supports people in marketing and communications in Canada. Nabs suffered from low awareness and, more importantly, low understanding within the communications industry

Brief: Remind industry professionals of the importance and relevancy of nabs to the people in our industry. And that they are there if anyone needs help.

Objectives: nabs wanted to create an emotional connection with industry professionals to give them a reason to care.

We used the stage of a national advertising awards show with an audience of the exact industry professionals we we’re looking to speak to, to execute a performance that reminded everyone in attendance why nabs exists, who it is for and how they can help.

We turned a simple acceptance speech into an emotional mental health confessional using real stories and experiences to create a live-ad that the audience became a part of.

Our target was marketing and communications professionals at any stage in their career who could be suffering from depression, anxiety or burnout in our high-stress, over-achieving industry or who might someday need help from nabs for a variety of reasons.

Approach

We chose a heavily attended national advertising awards show for the activation because the entire audience was exactly our target. Awards also play a role as the motivation and reward for all the energy we put into our work. We felt it was an important subtext to our messaging that just because you are winning awards doesn’t necessarily mean you are okay.

We chose the stage of a national advertising awards show to deliver this message, at an event we knew would be attended entirely by our target, marketing and communication professionals from across the country. Also one of the few shows where speeches from winners are an expected part of the show (and people actually listen to them).

We worked with the show to create a false category and false winner to get ourselves on stage.

Half-way into the night our “winner” took the stage and gave a speech which evolved from a standard thank you into an emotional mental health confessional. The attendees were surprised, moved and even shocked by the performance. The nabs logo and 24-hour helpline number then appeared on screen behind him as he walked off stage. Instead of telling the advertising crowd what nabs does, we made them feel it.

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