• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, October 26, 2023

Scene from a “Love, Your Health” PSA

The Ad Council’s record-setting, $65 million seven-year Mental Health Initiative, announced nearly a year ago, took a giant step this week with the launch of a comprehensive “Love, Your Mind” campaign.

Funded by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah, which has committed $15 million to the overall initiative, “Love, Your Mind” specifically targets adults who are most likely to experience mental health challenges, but unlikely to seek help.

Pharma & Health Insider spoke with Heidi Arthur, the Ad Council’s chief campaign development officer, about the new effort.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Pharma & Health Insider: How extensive is the Ad Council’s Mental Health Initiative?

Heidi Arthur: As with our historic COVID-19 vaccine education effort, we’re mobilizing the advertising, media and marketing community to create multiple rounds of PSAs tailored to distinct audiences, collaborating with community-based organizations and trusted messengers, and also sharing an open-source playbook.

Pharma & Health Insider: How is “Love, Your Mind” different from the Ad Council’s other mental health campaigns that target veterans, young adults, and the parents of middle schoolers?

Arthur: This is designed for a completely different audience: the roughly 70 million people in our country who are most in need and least likely to take care of their mental health.

Pharma & Health Insider: Can you break down that 70 million any further and explain why the campaign is starting with content targeting Blacks and Hispanics?

Arthur: “Love, Your Mind” is focused on adults, 18 to 49, with a skew toward 18 to 34.

Like our vaccine education campaign, we know we can’t have one size fits all, so within the 70 million who are struggling and least likely to get help, they tend to skew Black and Hispanic, they tend to skew male. With Black and Hispanic men, there was a gap in the market. They weren’t being directly addressed in a comprehensive way.

All content is also available in Spanish.

For LGBTQ, AAPI [Asian American Pacific Islander] and rural, we’ll be rolling out different content over the course of the next 12 months to reach the unique needs of each audience. [Editor’s note: content directed at women, including special Pinterest content, is also being planned)

Our rural work is filming as we speak, and will be coming out shortly.

Pharma & Health Insider: The “Love, Your Mind” PSAs and platform for Black and Hispanic men were developed by FCB New York and FCB Chicago, and you’ve also got House of Joy, Latinovations and Values Partnerships working respectively on activations in the Black, Hispanic and faith-based communities. What about future agency involvement?

Arthur: FCB, our long-term partner and creator of Smokey Bear, passionately and enthusiastically raised their hands and have been working with us over the course of the year.

They’ve really set the foundation and it will serve as inspiration for other partners to come on board and co-create. That will include other agencies, media partners, influencers, all under this same “Love, Your Mind” platform, customizing it to meet the needs of each audience.

Pharma & Health Insider: Can you elaborate on the faith-based element of the campaign?

Arthur: Faith is an important part of our content for black and Hispanic communities, so we’ve been also working with Values Partnerships on content, including a very innovative tool for faith leaders: our e-learning hub, which helps faith leaders educate themselves on the issue of mental health and how to have meaningful conversations with their community about it.

Pharma & Health Insider: What role does the dedicated “Love, Your Mind” website play in the campaign? 

Arthur: Everything directs people to LoveYourMindToday.org [or ConAmorTuMente.org].

It’s very comprehensive and designed to meet people where they are, explain to them the “what” and “why” behind how they’re feeling, as well as things they can do to help themselves, and links to resources. If someone is truly in a critical state, we want to make sure they get help as well.

Pharma & Health Insider: What can you say about what’s led us to this point with mental health and what you hope “Love, Your Mind” can accomplish?

Arthur: The mental health crisis was brewing in our country well before the pandemic.  The pandemic, as well as racial conflicts and financial strains, just put an exclamation point on it.

With work like this, it’s so easy to get it wrong. So we have involved mental health experts from both the clinical and nonprofit sides every step of the way.

We can’t solve everything with communications, but we can certainly create a culture that’s more open and accepting when it comes to mental health. We’ve done a lot of research, and four in 10 adults say they don’t even feel comfortable talking with people close to them about their emotions and how they feel.

People have to know that taking care of yourself, your mental health, is as important as your physical health, and it’s truly a sign of strength. It can be a gateway to everything else that you want to be in life.

“Love, Your Mind” is truly a love letter from your mind to you, to take care of the most important thing: yourself.