Power of Pause / Electric Ireland
Power of Pause - taking a collective pause.
Details
Since 2013, Electric Ireland has been a key brand partner of Darkness into Light, the internationally renowned fundraiser for Pieta.
The event has become a hugely important one for raising awareness of mental health issues and helping those in our communities affected by suicide look forward with hope.
Darkness into Light 2020 was unable to take place in a physical sense because of the Coronavirus pandemic and combined with a situation of widespread heightened anxiety, filling a void of conversation around these vital issues became vital.
Together with Electric Ireland, we set out to ideate and create a multimedia campaign to reach those who might be struggling with their mental wellbeing and the profound changes we all had to live with.
Power of Pause focused on the importance of doing just that - pausing - consciously slowing down, taking stock - and giving yourself a break. The campaign was highly commended in The Drum Online Media Awards, something we’re hugely proud of.
Details
Statistics show that people in NI experience 20-25% higher levels of mental health illness compared to the rest of the UK. That’s why events like ‘Darkness into Light’ exist - it’s an opportunity for people to connect with their local community and to show their support for those who have been impacted by suicide.
Brand campaigns in 2020 had to work hard. The public were battling with an ongoing pandemic directly affecting their everyday lives, the media was reporting unrelentingly gloomy and terrifying news about the pandemic and brands were struggling to cut through the noise to speak to their audiences in any kind of relatable or useful way.
Readers were tired, scared, confused and in need of a break. It was time to take a pause and to try and take stock of the changes we had all collectively experienced and someway prepare for the likely changes and hardships to follow.
Campaign idea
Over the course of October and December 2020, we worked closely with Electric Ireland and expert contributors to create ‘Power of Pause’, looking at different elements of mental health issues and encouraging our audience to experience the power of taking a collective pause.
The campaign used written content, video and podcasts with the aim of offering readers advice and practical information to help manage their mental wellbeing.
We created a dedicated topic area on Belfast Live to house all of the content to do with the campaign, comprising of:
> Written articles
To ensure we spoke with authority and integrity on the extended topic of mental health, we worked closely with Electric Ireland’s charity partner, Pieta House. This informed our editorial, phrasing and sensitivities to be aware of throughout the campaign.
Recognising the trust readers have in our editorial, our writers talked to experts from many different areas of mental health. The aim of this was to ensure that all advice and suggestions had been offered by a qualified expert.
The written articles from these experts and helpful voices offering tips and signposts for good mental health techniques supported all video content.
> Video interviews
Video content was a key storytelling format for engaging our audience on social media.
Our vision was always to tell the stories and direct experiences of those affected by mental health issues in a sensitive manner, without shying away from the challenging subject matter.
Our series of video interviews included a Northern Ireland media exclusive with local radio presenter Cate Conway, who lost her co-presenter and friend Stephen Clements to suicide. This emotional story was screened as a Facebook Premiere and had over 104k views.
> Special podcast episodes on existing Belfast Live Podcasts
By taking the topic of mental health and putting it in the context of our already established podcasts ‘How I Got Here’ (careers), ‘Is This Normal?’ (parenting) and ‘That’s What I Call Football’ (sport), we knew that we could reach established audiences and make a unique impact.
Results
With page views of over 45k and a Facebook reach of 699k, the campaign was a significant success, helping create a sense of positivity and hope that Electric Ireland were passionate about communicating during a truly unprecedented time.
The campaign had 45,157 total page views and the podcast episodes were listened to 686 times.
On the award nomination...
“As a brand Electric Ireland cares deeply about issues that impact our customers and local communities in Northern Ireland and our hope when we started to work on Power of Pause with the Belfast Live team was that we would be able to create content that would inform and support people throughout Northern Ireland in the most difficult of times.
“We are delighted to be recognised by The Drum for the work involved in Power of Pause and proud of this partnership.”
- Anne Smyth, Sponsorship Specialist at Electric Ireland.