A Mental Health Campaign by the City of St. Albert brings Positivity amidst the Pandemic

Context

March 2021 marked one year since the beginning of COVID-19. Many facets of the community in St. Albert, Alberta struggled with different aspects of the pandemic, including unemployment, increased stress, anxiety and taking on new roles (such as home schooling). 

'Above and Beyond: Mental Health Heroes' was a City of St. Albert community-focused initiative launched in March to inspire and provide hope in a time of COVID-19 fatigue. This initiative was created to help residents share a positive aspect of their situation by showcasing a community member who went above and beyond to support them.

Methodology

The project team worked with our partner department/client to create a campaign that targeted two audiences of St. Albert residents: youth (15-18 years old) and adults (40-60 years old). A common “super hero” design was developed to reinforce the idea that residents can be mental healthheroes. The colour palette used primary, bold colours often seen in super hero comics and action movies. Stock photography of people from diverse groups was selected to emphasize and enhance the messaging. For the youth audience, a different comic-book style typography treatment was incorporated to promote engagement. 

Results

Our goal was to have St. Albert residents participate by nominating a local mental health hero. Our objectives were to receive 25 submissions, reach 10,000 St. Albert residents on social media and have 1,000 unique views on the website. To meet our objectives, social media ads/stories (paid and unpaid) and paid print advertising (in a local newspaper) were used to direct residents to thecampaign website to nominate their hero. The result was a highly successful campaign that surpassed all the target objectives by receiving almost double the nomination submissions, reaching over 170,000 people on social media and having 1,900 unique pageviews on thecampaign website.

Takeaway

Despite the very modest campaign budget (which included advertising, stock images and recognition gift cards for award recipients), the campaign was extremely successful due to the appropriate and correctly targeted tactics that were developed.

Credits: Cory Sinclair, Manager; Florence Ma, Supervisor; Crystal Kessler, Communications Advisor; Nicole Lynch, Marketing Assistant and Marc Lesmister, Digital Media Coordinator.