From his intimate song lyrics to his candid social media posts, Lauv proudly shares his emotions and mental health journey with fans. He’s cognizant of how common it is for people to struggle with their mental health and well-being. He created a submission box which he brought on tour, inviting fans to write their own anonymous, cathartic messages. As a company, Microsoft is dedicated to increasing accessibility and inclusion, and reducing the gap between people who suffer from mental illness and proper treatment, so teaming up with Lauv to scale My Blue Thoughts was a no-brainer. We worked to take My Blue Thoughts from a small tour feature to a community-powered website that transcends language and location. MyBlueThoughts.World exposed global commonalities and united people in collective catharsis.

One in four people in the world will be affected by mental illness or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Lauv and Microsoft’s commitment to mental health awareness was apparent with the launch of our My Blue Thoughts collaboration. Lauv described it as “an interactive way for people to be able to get something off of their chest.” At the core of the initiative is a goal of promoting fans’ well-being around the world; the site is accessible in multiple languages, so that even if you couldn’t be at a show and share your thoughts in person, you could go online and anonymously share what’s on your mind in a safe and uplifting environment.

Lauv’s goal has always been to bring My Blue Thoughts to an even wider audience and shed light on mental health struggles in order to destigmatize them. Through our collaboration, we created a new way for fans to engage with their inner worlds while simultaneously finding solidarity in messages from other fans across the globe. Fans seeking catharsis and emotional relief could contribute to MyBlueThoughts.World from anywhere online, or in person at Lauv concerts, using the new tech-driven My Blue Thoughts booths we created. The activation connected fans in solidarity and raised mental health awareness across Lauv and Microsoft’s far-reaching platforms.

Microsoft’s target audience for branded collaborations like My Blue Thoughts is the Tech Active: a young (gen Z-millennial) person who is an early tech-adopter. Working with a young artist like Lauv, we targeted his fanbase, who are all genzennials, and also already primed for frank discussions around mental health thanks to Lauv’s songwriting, social media posts, and previous outreach work on the topic. We sought to use Lauv’s endemic audience as our starting point, branching out and widening our audience from there.

When users visited MyBlueThoughts.World they received a prompt: “What’s on your mind?” From there, they recorded themselves replying on their device’s camera, and through Microsoft Speech to Text API (a natural language processing AI), each spoken message was identified and transcribed. Once transcribed, the Text Analytics API pulled out key phrases, recognizing relevant terms and topics; and the Content Moderator checked for profanities and any undesirable text In order to foster a sense of connection, the Microsoft Translation API found matching key phrases from messages in various supported languages. So, if a user input a phrase with the word “lonely,” they could look at the map and see which other messages – in a dozen different languages – mention “lonely.” While they may not be able to understand all the messages, they could still see the massive scale and feel more connected to other fans feeling similarly.

My Blue Thoughts built awareness and brand love for Microsoft as well as helping to erase the stigma of mental health awareness and treatment for millions of people around the world. Thanks to robust support from both Microsoft and Lauv, our campaign netted 103 million organic impressions, 21.3 million video views, and 1.9 million link clicks to MyBlueThoughts.World. Publications including Engadget, Elite Daily, and the Daily Star drove 127 million PR impressions, proving that this was a project and topic that really resonated with audiences.