Intensive campaign to raise awareness about depression

Project Summary

Developed awareness building business to Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare aimed to increase understanding about depression in Toyama Prefecture.

Depression, the main cause of suicide
Of over 30,000 suicides per year in Japan, 75% may be suffering from mental illness, of which 46% is said to be caused by depression. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the number of patients with depression has increased by 2.5 times from 1999 to 2008, and the number of patients including potential patients has reached 4 million. In society, depression has been perceived as an individual problem, and therefore it was not a friendly environment for people at the risk of getting depression to seek for help. In cooperation with corporates /organizations, we ran “Toyama Depression Project”, designed to increase awareness and understanding about depression. This was conducted in Toyama prefecture because Toyama had over the average hospital inpatients due to mental illness and also there was a potential for synergy effect with the existing measures towards depression.

Intensive campaign to help raise awareness of depression
In the Toyama Depression Project, we conducted awareness campaigns through TV commercials, newspaper advertisements, posters, etc., with sound bite, “With you we cure depression.” In addition, Collaboration with Hokuriku Electric Power Co. and Toyama Economic Association, participating companies / organizations, further horizontal expansion of the movement and progress from “awareness “ to “ understanding” to “ action “ were observed. As a specific example, we produced 8 kinds of TV commercials according to 4 target segments such as managers/subordinates, couple, etc., and broadcasted a total of 176 times in 9 days at 3 main television stations in Toyama prefecture. In survey after the intensive campaign, the rate for “the depression is a disease to be addressed by society” and “the perception that anyone could suffer” increased by 17%, demonstrating a significant mindset change.

Successful public-private partnership campaign
In running this campaign, common understanding among 27 companies / organizations including medical institutions and the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, and in-synched process control were both indispensable. Therefore, we establishes a seamless cooperation mechanism with public institutions, specialists (university hospitals), doctors in charge, industrial physicians (health office at major companies), private enterprises, and the media, and built a steady starting ground for public-private partnership. As a result the campaign ROI was 10 times the effect of PR budget (when it is converted to adverts).