Finding the Words

Background

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) has been leading a movement against suicide. Every week 125 people in the UK take their own lives. And 75% of all UK suicides are male. For whatever reason, men in particular, often find it hard to talk about how they really feel.

Idea

Despite being a star in the ultimate macho sport of rugby, Joe Marler, who plays for Harlequins and England, knew from his own experience how difficult it is to talk about mental wellbeing.

In the video, Joe set about trying to help young guys find the right words to talk about their problems. Literally. By using YouTube’s preview functionality, a short film of Joe talking about a game became a very different story.

The message was that it’s okay not to be okay. Talk about it.

Results

The video gained 80,000 views on YouTube within the first 24 hours. It also got picked up by many different news and sports websites and made it to the top of Reddit.

com's video subreddit. But perhaps the important result was the heartfelt comments and discussions that sprung up in the comments on Reddit and YouTube.

Our Thoughts

The casting of Joe Marler as a spokesman for CALM is spot on. He’s the only international rugby player to have played for England with a Mohican haircut. Having such a powerful personality open up about his own mental health must surely dissolve the stigma of weakness some guys will feel.

YouTube is a great platform for the message too. According to Ofcom data, CALM’s target audience was spending an average of 73 minutes a day there and that was before Covid.

FatesOfDestiny commented: Thank you, I needed this. I don’t like calling or reaching out for anything, this was nice to come across and will help me forward.