The ‘Don't Hide Your Unhappy’ campaign replicates a text conversation between two young men, as one struggles to open up and share his mental health struggles, instead opting to pretend he is fine. At the end of the conversation, a text message from Shout 85258 appears, offering anonymous support and encouraging the receiver to seek help by texting LET IT OUT to 85258 if they are struggling.

The video was released following the surge in racial abuse directed at Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jordan Sancho after the Euro 2020 football final this month. Using a simple but effective graphic, Create Not Hate visualised the impact that racism has on young black men everyday and the danger of bottling these feelings up. 

The campaign was based on research conducted by The Outsiders for Shout 85258, which explored black youth culture and common barriers to mental health in the black community. It found that many black men are struggling with mental health but don’t feel like support services are for them.

Clare Bolton, director of marketing and communications at Shout 85258 says, “We know that young black boys and men are currently underrepresented in our service usage, but comprise a community that is affected worse than many by mental ill health. We’re launching this campaign in order to reach a broader demographic and to let anyone who needs support know that Shout 85258 is there for them, 24/7.”

The campaign explores the social concept of masking emotions, particularly among men, through two different creative executions, the first being this video. The second instalment is a static visual campaign which uses provocative headlines to grab the attention of a new demographic for the Shout helpline, which is currently most used by young white women.

The visual show a ‘Free Smile Mask’ for young black men to ‘Hide Your Unhappy’, which is accompanied by a message encouraging them to talk about their problems instead. Young people were consulted during the creation of the masks, to ensure the campaign would be impactful to the target audience.

Men’s care brand, Harry’s, who have a social impact mission to support organisations that promote better mental health care for men, funded the campaign, while Total Media provided free media. The video campaign will be shared across social media channels that are most popular with young people, namely Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube.