Case Study: Project 84

Background

CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) leads a movement against suicide, through frontline services, communities and campaigns. The organisation had been in conversation with adam&eveDDB regarding how they could get more organisations to become ‘CALM companies’: looking after their employees’ mental health. Through these conversations, they learned that 4500 men take their own lives a year in the UK. Put simply, if you are a man under the age of 45, statistically, the most likely thing to kill you is you. “Please excuse me when I say this,” says adam&eveDDB Business Director Chris Jackson, “but that is tragic, and that is fucking unacceptable. We wanted to do something to bring to life the outrage that we felt.”

The brief

So adam&eveDDB took it upon themselves to try and change this statistic. “A total of 4500 men committing suicide a year is impossible to understand. Twelve men a day is impossible to appreciate, but 84 men a week is impossible to ignore.” Jackson explains. The resulting brief was to create public outrage that the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 is suicide. From the outset, the team wanted to show this statistic in the “most incendiary way possible. Jackson explains, “We weren’t looking for an idea; we were looking for an image.” And so, the sight of 84 men standing on the edge of a building was conceived.

The production

The first aspect of the idea for this mental health awareness campaign was creating the 84 male statues themselves, which was undertaken by production partner Creative Giant. To make the project a collaborative one, they worked with acclaimed street artist Mark Jenkins. Jenkins is an American artist, who has himself experienced mental health issues and renowned for his site-specific, realistic sculptures made from packing tape. Jenkins led workshops with families whose sons, fathers, friends and husbands had taken their lives. This provided stories that captured “not just the tragedy of male suicide, but the optimism, defiance and recovery of those left behind, with which to fuel the media fire.”

Media would become a part of the second aspect, the location for the statues, for which the team partnered with broadcaster ITV. The ITV Tower on London’s South Bank provided a foreboding, imposing building upon which to situate the statues. It also unlocked national TV coverage: ITV’s flagship breakfast show, This Morning, became a partner, bringing the story of this suicide prevention media campaign into the homes of millions of viewers.

The launch

​ “It took 18 months from the first creative presentation to the launch date.” Explain Ant Nelson and Mike Sutherland, Executive Creative Directors on Project 84, “Patience and tenacity is an understatement, but we knew, despite all the complexities of the logistics, partnerships and funding needed, we had to make it happen. On 26 March 2018, the public awoke to see the figures atop of the ITV building. This Morning presenters Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby live broadcasted outside the studio, revealing the male suicide statues at the top of the building to viewers. PR was lined up to share the press release, social posts and get key media to the site to see if for themselves.

On the ground, CALM volunteers were in place to explain and discuss the installation with members of the public, which ran until 1 April. As the statues appeared, a petition went live on Change.org calling on government to deliver ministerial responsibility for suicide prevention and bereavement support. Schofield and Willoughby were clearly moved by the project, commenting “There is no question Project 84 has stolen the show and the week” and “I’ve never seen anything like it: for all the years we’ve been at the tower. To see all those statues at the top of the building. Everybody stopping. Looking up. And taking a moment.”

The response

The earned media coverage reached a remarkable £2.1bn in value over seven days. But adam&eveDDB point towards four tangible outcomes that the project garnered:

1. More people are talking about male suicide than ever before. For example, Google searches for male suicide reached a historic high. (Source: Google Trends; Crimson Hexagon).
2. More men are reaching out for help. Data from CALM’s helpline shows Project 84 allowed more men to get the help they needed. Calls for March increased by 41% YOY, representing an extra 3,666 men reaching out for help who might not have otherwise.
3. More men are alive today through conversation analysis, CALM can identify with certainty the number of suicides prevented through their helpline: thanks to Project 84, there are at least 239 men alive today, who wouldn’t have been otherwise. (source: CALM; Public Health England places economic cost per suicide at £1.67mn)
4. More men will be alive in years to come. Four hundred thousand people signed the petition, lead directly to Theresa May’s appointment of the UK’s first-ever Minister for Suicide Prevention, and the publication of the first-ever cross-government suicide prevention plan. There was recognition from within the creative industry, too.

At the D&AD Awards, the judges were similarly moved, awarding a total of nine Pencils across the board, including Yellow Pencils in Experiential and Press & Outdoor. This men's mental health campaign contributed to adam&eveDDB becoming the second most awarded agency globally. For the creatives behind this mental health awareness campaign, it was unflinching bravery in the face of a daunting topic that led to the project’s most significant impact: preventing suicide. “Project 84 took an incredibly complex topic, widely held as a taboo, and confronted it head-on.” Say Nelson and Sutherland: “We created an iconic visual image that helped people understand the enormity of the problem and encouraged a debate around it that would save lives.”

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