Five years ago, Droga5, the Ad Council, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the Jed Foundation (JED) partnered to launch Ad Council’s first brand campaign, “Seize the Awkward.” The platform was created to help normalize conversations around mental health among 16- to 24-year-olds and shift the perception of conversations about mental health from being potentially too awkward into something that audiences find meaningful.

In 2018, the first iteration of the campaign, “The Awkward Silence,’’ launched during Mental Health Awareness Month—to align with young people’s many important life experiences, from prom to graduation to new jobs and moving out, and to encourage young people to check in with their friends as they enter new chapters of their lives.

In 2020, the next iteration of “Seize the Awkward,’’ called “Whatever Gets You Talking,” debuted. A colorful musical film that flaunts the sheer breadth of ways to help start a conversation puts viewers in the shoes of a young hero as she tries to find the best way to reach out to a friend who she’s worried about. From February 2020 to February 2021, there was a 10-point lift in pre- to post-campaign awareness (54%). As of February 2021, tagline awareness had reached our highest level to date, with a six-point increase since Q1 2020 to 21%. Overall, the campaign received 600 million total Impressions, 5.2 million video views and garnered a total of 58,000 engagements.

Most recently in 2022, we developed “We Can Talk About It” which centered the experiences and attitudes of BIPOC and LGBT+ young adults. These young people are experiencing intersecting forms of injustice that impact their mental health and are looking for support from those around them who share their experiences and can relate. The campaign encourages friends to push past the stigma of mental health and create a new culture around mental health that challenges the existing barriers to conversation in their
communities. “We Can Talk about It” has garnered more than 91 million impressions.
This work is making an impact. As of December 2022, over half of young adults in the US were aware of the campaign. And awareness was highest among Black and Hispanic youth; 63% of Black young adults and 57% of Hispanic young adults were aware of the “We can Talk about it” campaign.