UMO.se is a website for young people in Sweden with information about sex, health and relationships. We were asked to make a campaign on the topic of mental health and self-esteem issues (stress, anxiety, eating disorders, etc) targeted towards 13–18 year olds. We teamed up with Swedish doll animation superstar Petter Lennstrand, British Felt Mistress for the character designs and Swedish pop stars Patrik Arve (of Teddybears) and Britta Persson for music and vocals. Shot in January 2013.
Client: UMO.se
Head of Communication: Liselotte Nordh Rubulis
Agency: Kärnhuset
Planner/Project Manager: Erik Thorsén
Account Manager: Johan Henriksson
Art Director: Jakob Westman
Copywriter: Paul Martinsson
Production Manager: Felicia Helldén Rhodin
Webb developer: Johan Benjaminsson
Character Design: Felt Mistress
Louise Evans & Jonathan Edwards
Production: BLA Stockholm
Director/Producer: Petter Lennstrand
DP/Set Designer: Robert Komarek
Animator: Elinor Bergman
Post: Tomas Näslund
Music/Producer: Patrik Arve
Vocals: Britta Persson
Lyrics:
Awkward and off
Where do I go?
Hurting myself
Wish someone would know
All of this stress
Where do I go?
Feeling depressed
Wish someone would know
Haunted again
Where do I go?
In need of a friend
Wish someone would know
(But) here is a place
Where I can see
Pictures and words
from others like me
Kortversion av reklamfilm för www.UMO.se – Ungdomsmottagningen på nätet.
Inspelad i januari 2013.
Uppdragsgivare: www.UMO.se
Kommunikationsansvarig: Liselotte Nordh Rubulis
Reklambyrå: www.Karnhuset.net
Planner/Projektledare: Erik Thorsén
Kundansvarig: Johan Henriksson
AD: Jakob Westman
Copy: Paul Martinsson
Produktionsledare: Felicia Helldén Rhodin
Figurdesign: www.Feltmistress.com
Louise Evans & Jonathan Edwards
Produktionsbolag: BLA Stockholm
Regi/Producent: Petter Lennstrand
Foto/Scenografi: Robert Komarek
Animation: Elinor Bergman www.elinorbergman.com
Efterbearbetning: Tomas Näslund
Musik/Producent: Patrik Arve www.swedishtiger.com
Sång: Britta Persson www.brittapersson.com
Text: Jakob Westman
Voice-over: Åsa Sandler (UMO)
The campaign resulted in a 182 % increase in searches related to mental health on the UMO website. It also received a Gold medal in the Swedish Kolla! Award, the Jury’s Special Vote in the Swedish Design Award, a Silver in the Swedish Publishing Award and a Silver in Månadens kampanj from trade press Resumé.
The copy in the poster above is from an actual letter to UMO, edited only for sake of anonymity. I don't think we could have written anything more emotional even if we tried. You just can't make stuff like that up. And there were (sadly) many letters like this to choose from. The CTA leads to other stories from teens.
Apart from the story, the character design was one of the main challenges in this project. We needed to find a way to visualize the mental health issues and also make teenagers identify with the characters. We opted to make them emotive but completely void of associations to gender, age, sub-culture, ethnicity, etc, to make them easier to project yourself onto.
