TVR - "The Depression Veterans"

GMP Advertising

GMP Advertising Bucarest, Romania

8880

Brand: TVR
Country: Romania

Advertiser: TVR

Title	The Depression Veterans
Agency	GMP Advertising
Campaign	The Depression Veterans
Advertiser	TVR
Brand	TVR
Date of First Broadcast/Publication	2015 / 3
Business Sector	Hospitals, Healthcare facilities & Medical Services
Story	This is the story of the first peer-to-peer campaign to help people with depression get professional attention. Despite being the #1 cause of disability and affecting over 15% of the population, people have no clue that a friend or relative is suffering from depression until it’s often too late. Our mechanic implies recruiting depression veterans, people who have been battling depression and won, as volunteers for depression detection at home, at school and at work. They are trained by psychiatrist in special workshops and taught how to recognize the symptoms around them and guide others to a doctor before it’s too late. It’s the only effective solution to this silent killer who is threatening over 3 million Romanians. Our pilot project will now be extended nation-wide with the help of the National Medical Association.
Philosophy	Our mechanic implies recruiting depression veterans, people who have been battling depression and won, as volunteers for depression detection at home, at school and at work. They are trained by psychiatrist in special workshops and taught how to recognize the symptoms around them and guide others to a doctor before it’s too late. It’s the only effective solution to this silent killer who is threatening over 3 million Romanians.
Problem	Over 3 million Romanians, totaling almost 15% the population, suffer from depression. But because the illness has no obvious symptoms, people have no idea someone close is in real danger and needs to receive professional attention, until it’s too late. The media only talks about the subject when an unusual suicide takes place and this adds to the problem as people who suffer in silence feel stigmatized and become even more unwilling to seek professional help. A radical new approach needed to be found to get people in need in front of a doctor – their only way out.
Result	The Strategy The core of our strategy was the power of peer-to-peer interaction. We needed to start a conversation with authentic stories, that’s why we used real depression veterans in our posters who admitted for the first time in public their gruesome struggle with depression. Their courage inspired people to create and share support posters and also talk about their fight in front of their friends in social media. People who before the campaign suffered in solitude discovered they can be actually part of a community. And they can get involved and make a change for the ones near to them. Execution We launched with a series of posters featuring real depression veterans and their personal wars with depression. The posters were distributed to doctors and placed in medical cabinets inviting veterans to our website. They could create personalized support posters and share them in social media. And enroll for the first training with a psychiatrist to learn to detect depression symptoms around them and help other.We turned the logo of the campaign into an real metal medal of honor and sent it to key opinion leaders and bloggers together with a drafting order inviting them to join our cause. And also awarded the first graduates with it. Celebrity news anchors from other TV Stations proudly wore the medal in prime time. ResultsAll the content from the training was available on the website and a TV ad featuring an utopic Depression Makeup Artist invited everyone online to learn the symptoms. This was the first campaign that inspired regular Romanians to have the courage to admit their struggle to friends in social media. It gathered in under a month over 136,000 PR impressions and EUR 15,000 in earned media. The website had over 77,000 page views in just a couple of weeks with zero media budget. Visitors spent 4 minutes in average on the site. 350 personalized support posters were created and almost 3,000 users proudly shared the content in social media. Our first depression detection training held by a psychiatrist was fully booked in just hours from launch. Inspired by the cause, an online newspaper livestreamed for free the entire training day, so that all Romanians could see it in real time. The first graduates are now starting a NGO together. And the National Medical Association plans to turn the idea into a nation-wide project.
Media Type	Case Study
Length	120 seconds
Creative Director	Mihai Gongu
Copywriter	Mihai Gongu
Strategic Planning Director	Ioana Gheorghita
Art Director	Florian Nistor
Copywriter	Sebastian Romano
Sound Producer	Ioana Stangacilovic
Sound Producer	Radu Teodorescu
Account Manager	Alexandra Mihalca
Public Relations Expert	Andrada Tuca
Public Relations Expert	Cristina Butunoi
Graphic Designer	Victor Trifan
Photographer	Robert Calin
Client Services Director	Anamaria Ghiurca
Digital Project Manager	Adriana Ciocan
UX Designer	Katalin Balint
Web Developer	Dragos Bodin
Web Developer	Cosmin Panait
Public Relations Expert	Roxana Poede
Photographer	Balint Hajagos
Editing Company	Zoran Stangacilovic
Digital Content Strategist	Andrei Balan