CALM’s aim was to get British ‘blokes’ to start talking to their mates about how they are actually doing. The idea is to get friends to go deeper than ‘hows it going’ in order to relieve some mental stress in a simple way.

The focus was to find interesting ways the details and visual representation of the campaign could be communicated with the target audience.

Up until 2011, CALM was mainly aimed at men aged 15-35, but upon reviewing the statistics it was clear that there was a growing number of calls to their hotlines from men over this age. They then changed their focus to cover men of all ages. Today CALM help both men and women of all ages in the UK.

Over the past five years or so, the focus of mental health campaigns has been on the growing number of young people that struggle with anxiety and depression. The idea of this campaign was to focus on a specific section of the UK public that had perhaps been forgotten: the middle aged man.

Developing this campaign was a test in language. Removing stigma and taking pressure off the average Joe in the pub was the main objective. Pairing CALM with Weatherspoon’s was the perfect way to get into the second home of the bloke: the pub. With targeted beer mat and toilet ads and the use informal language was the ideal way to speak directly to the demographic.

A website with simple tips and the offer of a a free pint with a friend creates the opportunity for these guys to open up about their feelings, even if it’s only for a moment. Along with this a pin was created, a badge of honour, that would be worn with pride and let the other locals know that not only that its ok to speak about your feelings, but be proud of it.