Q:  What is the Time to Change campaign all about?

The campaign aims to tackle the stigma and discrimination that people with mental health problems experience.  We’re doing this by letting the public know that mental health problems are a common part of life, and making them aware of the real impact of stigma and discrimination on people’s everyday lives.

Q:  What do we want people to do?

We want people to think again about the negative attitudes they have around mental health problems, realise that mental health problems will affect their lives and start to change the way they act when their friends or family experience mental health problems.

Q:  What is new about the summer campaign?

We are re-running our successful TV and press advertising and have also developed two new online films. 

Both films challenge the stereotype that links people with mental illness with violence, particularly people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.  This is one of the most damaging myths, and we intend to tackle it rather than shy away from the topic.

Our core target audience is middle to lower socio-economic groups, late 20s to mid 40s, both men and women who have some proximity to people with mental health problems e.g. friends, colleagues, wider family.  Our aim is that these films will also reach an audience who haven’t noticed our campaign yet – people who say they don’t know someone with a mental health problem.

‘The Movie’ relies on people’s fascination with the sinister to get them to reconsider their attitudes.  It takes people on a journey – from a point of fear, and falling back on stereotypes of people with schizophrenia, all the way to the realisation that people with mental health problems are not like the stereotypes.  It also points out that it is the support of friends and family that have been a deciding factor in this man’s life. 

‘Kids Party’ works on a similar basis – except this time, people think they are about to see real video footage.   This concept relies on ironic humour to allow people to reconsider their attitudes without feeling like we are pointing the finger at them.

Q:  Why have you developed new online films?

‘The Movie’ and ‘Kids Party’ are designed to be hard-hitting and high impact.  We launched Time to Change in January and reached 32 million adults with our campaign and our evaluation showed that nearly half of this audience remembered it and our key messages.  But we also know that many people are harder to reach and don’t feel that mental health issues are relevant to their lives.

We developed these two new hard-hitting films to also reach out to this group with our messages and make them stop and think.  Our new online advertising is designed to get people to notice the issue and start to think about their own attitudes and behaviour towards people with mental health problems.  We also know from our research that we have to communicate with people using their frame of reference and avoid pointing the finger of blame at them.  When we researched our concepts in focus groups they tested well. People expected one thing and got something completely different. They realised that they had made the wrong assumption and it provoked wry smiles.

Q:  Have people with direct experience of mental health problems been involved in the development of the campaign?

People with mental health problems were involved from the start across the whole Time to Change portfolio.  Nearly 4,000 service users and carers across England took part in our Stigma Shout research, the biggest ever survey about stigma and discrimination. Since then people with experience of mental health problems have been involved with each stage of research and development.

The original ideas for these online films came from evaluation from our first round of advertising and from a creative session that our advertising agency MCBD held with people with direct experience, including people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.  We have also shared the concepts with people with direct experience, including our Campaign Advisory Board and have used their feedback to develop these films alongside our audience testing. 

We also get advice from people with experience of mental health problems through both the Lived Experience Advisory Panel and formally and informally through the membership and governance bodies of Mind and Rethink.

Q: Does this sort of charity marketing campaign really make a difference?  Is it a good use of money?

With this film, we needed to do something hard-hitting to get people to stop and take notice of an issue that they don’t normally think about or see as relevant to them.  There is evidence to show that hard-hitting ads can be effective, and when developing these films we looked at controversial advertising that other organisations have run, which have proved to be effective, such as:

• The recent Barnardo’s campaign Children in Trouble. The adverts were shocking, depicting a young girl attacking a member of the public. Yet they challenged the negative attitudes towards young people by using the stereotypes in order to undermine them, in a similar way as ‘the Movie’.
• A graphic teen pregnancy video produced by Leicester City Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Partnership which shows a young girl giving birth in a school playground, was viewed more than 3 million times on the internet. The video has started a debate which encouraged young people in the city to think about the issues around teenage pregnancy.
• The Department of Health’s Get Unhooked campaign, which showed smokers being literally hooked by a fishing line, attracted 774 complaints, but as a direct result 1.3 million smokers sought help to give up.

Each of these examples shows that hard-hitting films can grab attention and consequently challenge the public’s behaviour more effectively. 

We were very lucky to work with agencies and creative experts including directors and producers who provided their services for free, or on a shoestring budget, and so we were able to make considerable cost savings.

Q: Why do both films feature Stuart, rather than an actor?

It was important to us that the films feature a real person with experience of schizophrenia and not an actor.  Stuart has faced stigma in his life and has overcome it and has had the courage to speak out about it in order to change attitudes - we hope many others will do the same.  Stuart will also be speaking out in the press as we are running a PR campaign to accompany our online marketing activity. People with real experience, including celebrities are central to our advertising and media work as we know it will help people confront their stigmatising attitudes.

Q: Most people with schizophrenia aren’t like Stuart – why are you painting such a positive picture of recovery? 

Whilst not everyone does recover, many people with mental health problems are able to lead a full life, just like anyone else.  We want to counter common misconceptions about mental health, by showing that people can and do recover, and that the support of family and friends is vital to this.  In our consultations, lots of people with mental health problems have told us that stigma and discrimination can be worse than the diagnosis itself, and that often, having the support of friends and family can be extremely important in recovery. We hope that these films will help highlight this. 

Q: What would you say to people with mental health problems who are distressed by these films?

The films are not intended to cause distress to anyone, and we have worked hard to try to ensure that the content does not distress people.  However, we have had to balance this with the need to create an advert that gets people’s attention.  The films are aimed at a target audience of people who have not previously engaged with mental health issues and who don’t think mental health is relevant to their lives, which is why they have to be hard-hitting. 

We have designed the adverts to work online so that it won’t take people long to realise that these films totally undermine stereotypes and combat stigma and will give hope to the large numbers of people with mental health problems who are facing stigma and discrimination every day. 

Q: Who made these films?

Both films were created by MCBD advertising agency, the Art Director on the project is Lee smith and the Copy Writer, Nick Bird. To bring their ideas to life, Lee and Nick utilised the skills of Director Jonathan Pearson of Steam Media. Jonathan’s supporting production team was headed up by Producers Geoff Stickler and Adam Dolman. Once filming was complete, the second stage of the production called upon the expertise of a digital production house, supplied by The Moving Picture Company (MPC) which most recently provided effects for the latest Harry Potter movie.  Leading the team at MPC was Head Producer Sam Davidson and Head of Digital Jonny Dixon.

The Movie

Q: Why are you using the word ‘Schizo’, which you have criticized newspapers in the past for using? 

We believe that we have to communicate with people using the references and language they are used to, and then ask them to rethink this by turning it on its head.  That’s why the film mimics the kind of depiction of mental illness that people are used to seeing in their daily lives, and then directly challenges this with Stuart’s story – a real person with schizophrenia. When we tested the concept with our target audience, we found that viewers had their preconceptions challenged effectively using this approach.  It is controversial, but unlike newspapers’ use of the word ‘Schizo’, we are aiming to undermine the stereotypes rather than reinforce them. We don’t intend to use this word very often and we carefully considered the implications of using this term.

Q:  But aren’t people with schizophrenia violent?

The connection between schizophrenia and violence is prevalent in the media and feeds the myth that people with mental illness are all violent or potential killers.  However most people with schizophrenia are not violent and are more like Stuart in the film: trying to get on with their lives just like the rest of us.  Here are some facts that show just how rare violence by people with schizophrenia really is:

• You are more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to be killed by someone with schizophrenia – these incidents are very rare indeed.
• You are 94 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than by a person with schizophrenia – but we don’t treat all drivers with fear and suspicion.
• Thousands of people in Britain are living with schizophrenia, it can affect up to 1 in every 100 people, and the vast majority are never violent.

Kid’s Party

Q:  Why are you showing children being scared by someone with schizophrenia?

It is clear from the film that the children were enjoying themselves, and were not in fact being scared or harmed in any way – which is the point of the film. All the children’s parents gave consent for them to be filmed because they believed it was important to undermine negative and misleading perceptions about people with schizophrenia.

Q: Doesn’t this kind of viral film fuels the nation’s appetite for grotesque and shocking films?

The content of this film is not grotesque or gratuitous. The title of the film does attempt to attract people’s attention by playing on their fascination with scary films. But the film itself then challenges their preconceptions, as in fact it just shows kids being entertained at a party – a normal part of life.  By encouraging more people to watch our movie, we will challenge people’s prejudices, hopefully encouraging them to rethink their appetite for films that rely on stereotypes about people with schizophrenia and other mental health problems in the future. 

More about the Time to Change campaign

Q:  Who is running and funding Time to Change?

Time to Change is a partnership of the leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink, with The Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London as our evaluation partner. The campaign is being funded by the Big Lottery and Comic Relief. We receive £16 million from the Big Lottery Fund and £4 million from Comic Relief.

Q:  Is the campaign being evaluated?

The impact of each burst of activity is evaluated by a market research agency and annually by The Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London.  For each campaign burst we question approximately 1,000 members of the public, using on-line tools, before, during and after the campaign.

Q:  Who is the campaign aimed at?

In demographic terms the campaign is aimed at men and women, late 20s to early 40s, from middle to lower socio economic groups. In terms of attitude we are targeting ‘subconscious stigmatisers’ – people who don’t recognises that discrimination happens because of mental health problems, or that their actions might be contributing to this. This group generally have low levels of knowledge about mental health problems, and high levels of fear. We want to make mental health problems visible to them, and give them the tools and knowledge they need to be less afraid of mental health problems and be able to support friends and family.

Q: How can I get involved with Time to Change?

There are a range of ways in which organisations and individuals can get involved - find out more.

For more information about the Time to Change social marketing campaign please contact Kate Stringer, Social Marketing Manager or call 020 7840 3141. 

If you have a PR or media enquiry please contact Jenny Tudor, Media and PR Officer or call 020 8215 2358.