There has been a rise in mental health awareness across social media channels, especially, in professional circles. Corporate life doesn’t treat many people well and organization cultures have become toxic more often than not.
Here are a couple of brands with an attempt to ride this wave and associate their offerings with the need for mental health.
Asics | The Desk Break
If you’ve watched “Succession” there is no way you’d not get this advert with Brian Cox in it. And of course most people loved the series about a corporate behemoth Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his media company Waystar Royco.
To the uninitiated, Logan Roy was the lead character in the series, he was the owner/chairman of Waystar Royco and a very tough boss to work with. But Asics weaves the narrative around how tough bosses are not really the main reason for mental health issues in employees. It is the work desk where they sit for long hours without breaks.
Asics, on their website, backs it up with the research they conducted in 22 countries across 26,000 respondents. Their research showed that active people feel 30% more energized, 21% more confident, 19% more focused and 23% more relaxed. So, just a 15 min break for a quick movement makes a huge difference to the state of mind and helps reduce stress.
If you are interested in knowing more about their research, you can follow the link here.
But bottomline, this advert ties in beautifully the Asics Tagline (Sound mind, Sound Body) very well into a worrisome pervasive phenomenon of poor mental health of late. With some witty dialogue writing (F*** the fruit) and a perfect engrossing delivery by Brian Cox (in the character of Logan Roy), this ad has etched itself in my memory as a great example of good execution.
WeRoad | The Holiday Reaper
For a travel company, it is not hard to tie in mental health, because yes, that is what vacations do to us: improve our mental health.
Let’s look at the ad.
Well, I for one, didn’t know about WeRoad till I found its advert. It is not tough to decipher that this advert belongs to a travel organizer or something. It targets employees and encourages them to use up their leaves because otherwise the HR (Holiday Reaper) would take them away.
But you don’t actually get to know anything about the USP of the company or get any clarity about their offerings.
Honestly, I found the ad very stressful to watch. I don’t like horror. But either way, I rarely admire ads which talk very less about the brand and focus more on theatrics.
The only time when you get to see the brand is at the end, for the last 7 seconds or so out of the 54 seconds of airtime. And it hardly says anything remarkable in the end. That’s very poor brand exposure.
At least the Asics ad had Brian Cox wearing their brand of shoes after around the 46th second and there was ample product visibility after that.
Anyway, mental health is an important issue nowadays and it would be good to see these brands practicing what they preach within their own organizations as well. Beside that, I completely buy their messaging: I love running and traveling as well. It is good for my health. You should too!