The coronavirus pandemic has had a great impact on our mental health. With our near and dear ones getting affected and extended lockdown imposed by countries, stress and anxiety are at an all-time high. Therefore, experts suggest that it is very important to talk about the pandemic's mental health issues.
Before the pandemic, people were reluctant to talk about mental health, but things changed thanks to the increased awareness. This mental health awareness month, media, brands and organizations, everyone is doing their bit in encouraging people to talk about mental health and associated issues. Conversation Media marketing has played a notable role in starting dialogues around mental health in a more engaging way when it comes to brands.
Conversation Media - emojis, GIFs and stickers - have been doing rounds to de-stigmatize mental health, encourage people to talk about their emotional wellbeing and promote self-care.
Let's look at a few examples where brands used conversation media to start meaningful mental health conversations.
1. Giphy
One of the world's largest GIF sharing platforms made some commendable efforts towards sparking conversations around mental health. It launched a dedicated Mental Health Awareness Channel where users can find shareable GIFs and stickers. In addition, it partnered with several artists and came up with amazing animations to spread awareness about mental health through GIF marketing.
Source: https://giphy.medium.com/mental-health-awareness-on-giphy-3fa4a7eb813e
Source: https://giphy.medium.com/mental-health-awareness-on-giphy-3fa4a7eb813e
These GIFs and stickers are readily available on social media platforms and are now becoming a part of our everyday conversations.
2. Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
CALM, a leading mental health charity based in the UK, runs a free and confidential helpline and webchat for anyone who needs to talk about life's problems. Recently, they launched a campaign urging the Unicode Consortium to add a new "unhappy pile of poo" emoji. The reason behind this is to give people a way to tell their loved ones that things aren't great and they are feeling low or unhappy.
The charity organization also surveyed more than 2,000 people and found that only 13% believe that there is currently an emoji that helps them express their mental health struggles.
3. Match Emoji
There's always been a gap between the young generation and mental health services. Researchers in New Zealand tried to bridge this gap by designing a game for kids. Children can use this game to express how they feel.
Source: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/upping-the-game-for-young-kiwis-mental-health
Based on the mobile game Candy Crush, 'Match Emoji' requires players to match emojis to make them disappear. Kids will choose emojis that express their feelings and emotions.
Other Visual Attempts That Spread Awareness About Mental Health.
Brands have been using emojis and stickers to raise awareness about mental health on social media.
Zomato
Zomato did not adopt some fancy emoji marketing strategy. Instead, it simply sent out a message to its customers showing that the brand cares about their mental health. But with a relevant emoji.
Co-Heal
Co-Heal, a mental health platform, used visual forms of media in its latest Instagram post educating people about OCD.
The visuals in the post are such that they capture our attention instantly. It is also easy to understand how to deal with OCD when we have visuals in front of us.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPfHxWbnCbT/
Doodle Dwellness
Doodledwellness, another wellness account on Instagram, used visuals to educate people about the benefits of yoga during the mental health awareness month. The graphics had yoga poses along with benefits that got entrenched in our minds.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPYalVGMtUC/
Why can Conversation Media make an impact?
Research conducted by Bobble AI revealed that Gen Z and millennials think chatting over messaging apps was an easy and fun way of communication. Half of the respondents (50%) preferred chatting over audio calling (37%) and video calling (13%). This means they would be comfortable messaging about their mental health issues instead of talking over the phone.
Conclusion
Brands will need to adopt new and engaging methods to provide mental health support to their customers. Most of it has to be through the internet. And when it comes to the internet, Conversation Media is here to stay. It has already found a place in mental health conversations and can bring about a revolution in the coming days.
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