ABOUT

BRIEF
CALM - the Campaign Against Living Miserably - is a suicide prevention charity. Each year, 629 young people, on average, take their own life. We needed to make suicide and suicide prevention a national conversation again. We were briefed to develop a UK-wide awareness activity to increase conversations about suicide as a preventative measure.

CONCEPT
Missed Birthdays: an installation of 6,292 birthday balloons was created - each bearing the number of a birthday someone never celebrated because they took their own life.

Its impact was both immediate and immense, provoking the national conversation we needed
It led to thousands seeking more information and accessing the CALM C.A.R.E. Kit designed to offer potentially life-saving information and advice to the public.

EXECUTION
On 9 September 2024, we unveiled an installation of 6,292 foil birthday balloons hovering in the halls of London's Westfield shopping centre. It looked like the best birthday party in history.

Moments later we revealed that each balloon bore the birthday that was never reached because a young person had died by suicide before that moment. They also marked the birthdays that families would never celebrate with their loved ones.

The spectacular installation captured the hearts and minds of those passing by and was seen by 305,000 people over the period it was in situ.

As a central pillar we worked with ITV's This Morning. We moved their iconic sofa - generally in the heart of their studio - to the centre of the installation, from which the team broadcast the entire show to an audience of 486,000.

From there, the installation delivered over 220 pieces of editorial coverage. That came from core national titles - the Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Independent and many others besides.

RESULTS
This campaign delivered remarkable results through editorial coverage.
Over 220 pieces of coverage delivered over 350 million Opportunities to See through editorial coverage alone.

I 00% of the editorial pieces were positive in tone, and 85% of the pieces carried a key prevention message - whether "Start a conversation", "Talking helps", "Ask twice," or "It can be hard to spot the signs".

60% of people asked understood the main message of the campaign to be that "The signs of suicide aren't always obvious". 57% of those exposed to the campaign agreed that it had made them think differently about suicide. 66% said they would be more likely to check in on someone they were worried about - equating to 32 million UK adults.

There were 29,500 visits to the CALM C.A.R.E. Kit webpages, and 8,000 people downloaded it. While not a critical measure of success, donations increased by 400% year-on-year.