• by Les Luchter , September 6, 2023

She won an Oscar for directing the 2010 Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker,” and later made “Zero Dark Thirty,” another Oscar nominee.

Her latest work: a PSA featuring real veterans for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and The Ad Council.

With the military teaching soldiers “service before self,” research by creative agency GSD&M confirmed that veterans are prone to help others rather than seeking help for themselves.

Bigelow’s spots, which come in four lengths, feature a diverse range of veterans reflecting on the difficulties of asking for support, ending with a visual of “VA.gov/reach,” which offers resources for veterans, their friends and families.

The ads, part of the VA/Ad Council’s two-year old campaign, “Don’t Wait. Reach Out,” aim specifically at stemming suicides among veterans. The VA says, that while numbers have been going down “meaningfully,” the rate of suicides was still 57% higher among veterans than non-eterans in the last reported year, 2020.

The new PSAs will run in donated time and space from the media, including broadcast, radio, digital, social, out-of-home and print formats, including distribution to the Ad Council’s network of over 1,850 broadcast TV stations and 9,500 radio stations across the country.

Since “Don’t Wait. Reach Out launched in October 2021, the Ad Council says the campaign has garnered over $40 million in donated media support -- resulting in more than 3.5 million visits to VA.gov/REACH.

“Don’t Wait. Reach Out,” part of the Ad Council’s Mental Health Initiative, comes at the midpoint of the VA’s 10-year strategy to end veteran suicide through community prevention and clinical intervention strategies.

The campaign launched in October 2021 with "Boil" PSAs from TBWA\Chiat\Day NY. They used a story of a frog in a pot of boiling water to encourage struggling veterans to take action before their life challenges reach a crisis point.

Last year’s PSAs, from We are the Mighty, were designed to reach specific segments: female veterans (the fastest-growing veteran group) and older veterans (aged 55 and older, representing 65% of veterans).

The new campaign isn’t the first time Bigelow has worked on an Ad Council campaign. Three years ago, she directed PSAs for a “Mask Up America” campaign, from TBWA\Chiat\Day.