APA Mental Health Campaigns Win Advertising Awards

In March, the APA Office of Communication and Public Affairs (OCPA) and the American Psychiatric Foundation’s Partnership for Workplace Mental Health program were awarded collectively eight Gold ADDY awards by the American Advertising Federation (AAF).

“We are really excited about our win,” Eve Herold, director of OCPA, told Psychiatric News. “I have always known about the ADDY awards, so I knew the competition to win one was very fierce.”

According to the AAF, the ADDY Award “represent[s] the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative firms of all sizes, and entrants of all levels from anywhere in the world.”

OCPA received top honors in the digital-media category for its infographic, “A Veteran’s Worst Wounds May Be the Ones You Can’t See,” which was a part of the public-service announcement series, “A Healthy Minds Minute,” hosted by former member of Congress Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy is an APA senior advisor and spokesperson.

An infographic is a visual representation of complex information or data. OCPA’s award-winning infographic includes an illustration of a military-camouflaged brain surrounded by statistical information highlighting military-related mental health concerns such as suicide, posttraumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury (see page 34).

Jennifer Dart, social media and special projects manager in OCPA, told Psychiatric News that after a concept was generated to depict a visual for mental health issues within the military, the office contracted with Homefront Communications to execute graphic designs. “After being presented with three graphic design choices, we were convinced that the camouflaged brain was a great way to illustrate military mental health concerns,” Dart said.

Dart, whose father served in the Vietnam War and lost his life to suicide, said that the award-winning infographic was intended to relay to service members, veterans, and their families that “getting help for mental illness is a sign of strength, not weakness.”

Though the infographic was released around Veterans Day 2013, Dart said that the infographic continues to receive positive feedback from social media and other media outlets.

A total of seven gold ADDY awards were given to the American Psychiatric Foundation’s (APF) Partnership for Workplace Mental Health for the program’s Right Direction initiative.

Clare Miller, director of the partnership program, told Psychiatric News that she was not too surprised by the wins. “We have had so much fabulous feedback about the campaign. I had expected that the campaign might get recognition because it is innovative and not your typical mental health campaign,” she stated.

Right Direction is a program that employers can use to raise awareness about depression in the workplace and encourage employees to seek help for signs mental illness. The campaign is a collaborative effort by APF and Employer Health Coalition Canton, Ohio (Psychiatric News, August 8, 2013).

APF worked with Grabowski and Company to create the campaign’s marketing materials, which features a grizzly bear that is alone and lost in the wilderness, trying to find his way out—suggesting a feeling of being apart from the world that is often characteristic of depression.

In speaking with Psychiatric News, APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., said that he is “appreciative of all those who were involved in helping APA receive these prestigious accolades.”

Levin emphasized that “as APA moves forward, it will continue to seek out creative ways to raise awareness of the needs of those living with mental illness throughout the nation and to end the unnecessary stigma directed against those with a mental illness.” ■