Insights · Campaigns
How to make mental health ads people don't scroll past
Lessons from a six-week newspaper flight in Cambridge and a season of stadium and arena boards in Boston.
Mental health advertising has a tone problem. Most of it is either clinical (a list of conditions and a phone number) or so soft it says nothing at all. This fall we made campaigns for two Boston-area mental health programs in two very different places: the pages of The Harvard Crimson, and the stadium and arena boards of two college athletic departments. Here's what held true in both.
Talk to a community, not a diagnosis
Nobody wants to be addressed as a symptom. The Crimson campaign for Cambridge Mental Health opened the school year with "Welcome back. We see you." Before any mention of anxiety or depression, it acknowledged the person and the season they're in. For a university athletics partnership we wrote for the whole campus community rather than singling out students, and the work was better for it. "BU community mental health" is warmer than any line aimed at one group.
Name the real feeling, then lower the stakes
The strongest rotation of the Crimson half page simply named what students carry: "The late nights. The pressure. The weight." The call to action didn't ask anyone to commit to treatment. It asked for "one confidential conversation," a first step small enough to actually take.
Give the campaign a place
A clinic can feel abstract until you know where it is. Every piece of the Crimson flight used the same visual: a Red Line map with Central stop circled, a few stops from Harvard. That graphic did the wayfinding, made the campaign recognizable week to week, and turned an address into something that felt close. A campaign system like this lets the headline change every week without losing recognition.
Write for one second
Stadium ribbons and dasher boards are read from the seats, in motion, between plays. We write them for a one-second read: the brand name, one idea, nothing else. If a board needs a sentence to explain it, it's the wrong board.
Only claim what's true for everyone who sees it
Insurance language is where well-meaning ads get into trouble. A claim that's accurate for one plan can be wrong for the student reading it. We keep coverage lines precise, or leave them out, and we never lean on outcome numbers that can't be verified. The restraint reads as trustworthy.
Make it feel like it belongs there
A newspaper ad should look like it was made for that newspaper, and a stadium spot should feel like part of game day. When the work fits its surroundings, people give it the attention they'd give the page or the game, instead of treating it as something to get past.
See the Crimson campaign and the stadium work on our work page, or learn more about our behavioral health marketing and advertising campaigns.