Encouraging Authentic Dialogue on Mental Health

As an agency which has worked at the heart of health and wellbeing projects for 15 years, we’re pretty well placed to reflect on the seismic shift which has happened in terms of ‘mental health discussion’.

It wasn’t so many years ago, that we were approached by a client wanting to task us with a reputational ‘issue’.

What transpired, was that the business was feeling incredibly vulnerable - internally and externally - that it may become public knowledge that their CEO had been struggling with mental health issues and was now going to have an enforced period of absence to recover from a breakdown.

The culture of the company was built on a mantra of unshakeable resilience, which it felt had to be portrayed through the robust behaviours of all of its staff.

In their eyes, mental health should never be discussed, for fear of it impacting the brand in a negative way.

Thank goodness then, that the world has moved on so far from this sort of unhelpful and potentially destructive way of thinking.

Indeed, today, we make a point of really getting to know how our clients think and feel about these important issues. We want to learn how great their internal communication is regarding mental health, and how this might relate to external storytelling and PR.

For the most part, we find business leaders to be far more ready to talk on a personal level about mental health experiences.

In the right context - and certainly not for the sake of ‘shoehorning’ a theme into a business story - we fervently believe that when our clients are happy to be more authentic about their journey, or that of their company culture, it’s a great way of enabling audiences to resonate and to see the brand as relatable.

Being fully authentic in corporate communication can often challenge thinking, and raise all sorts of questions about motivation and intention, but it’s something we wholeheartedly applaud.

Today, on World Mental Health Day, we celebrate all those businesses who are doing more to ensure that two-way communication about mental health is very much appreciated and encouraged.

If you would like our help in enabling you to better convey your policies on mental health, or you’d like to discuss how you could appropriately share a story about mental health and wellbeing, we’d welcome a conversation.