Award-winning poster campaign for Samaritans
The suicide rate amongst UK men is at its highest point in 15 years, particularly in the working-class demographic. Research also shows that it is this same audience who struggle most when it comes to talking about their problems.
With this in mind, we developed a campaign at MullenLowe aiming to reposition Samaritans as the expert listeners. We worked with the globally recognised photographer Nadav Kander to create the sense of anonymity in our reverse portraits. The media roll out for the campaign was across thousands of OOH poster sites in railway stations across England, Scotland and Wales raising awareness for the Samaritans 24-hour listening service, which offers emotional support to anyone who needs it. Since the campaign was launched there has been a fall in the number of people dying by suicide on the railways.
The campaign won a D&AD wood pencil for Crafts in advertising as well as a Bronze Creative Circle award for Best charity press/outdoor.
The ‘We Listen’ poster campaign was also nominated in the prestigious Beazley Designs of the Year awards. Celebrating the best design from all over the world from that year. The campaign was selected as part of the 70 most iconic and important designs of 2017, including the Channel 4 identity rebrand and the flat-pack refugee shelter by IKEA. All the shortlisted designs were displayed in The Design Museum, London.
The ‘We Listen’ poster campaign also featured in Wellcome Collections, exhibition Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? - exploring the relationship between graphic design and health. The work featured alongside a long list of amazing designers and studios including Alan Kitching, Pentagram, and Studio Dumbar. To accompany the exhibition a book was published by graphicdesign& with the same title which also featured the work.