Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is the UK's largest car manufacturer and certainly one of our favourites. When the brand came to us, it was dealing with an ever-increasing rate of absenteeism due to mental illness among its workforce. It was clear there just wasn’t the right support in place for its people and something needed to change. We were determined to deliver that change.
Together, we settled on the idea of an integrated communications campaign. Shared internally, its aim was to give employees advice and support wherever they were based. To make sure JLR’s messaging hit home with everyone it reached quickly and with real impact, we decided to film three short documentaries about real-life employees struggling with various forms of mental illness. The choice of real protagonists was a conscious one: the success of the campaign depended entirely on their authenticity.
We got to know our three protagonists before shooting began so by the time we called, ‘Action!’, they trusted our team and were able to open up on camera. It was important for us to show how the illness affected not only professionally but also privately. So we found local self-help groups near the JLR locations and made contact details available on the internal website. Then, the ‘Let’s have the conversation’ campaign launched with our three films, plus a short teaser, on World Mental Health Day.
The aim of the campaign was to show employees that talking to someone is often the first step in the right direction. We wanted to showcase real employees’ stories to prompt others in the business to engage and take that leap for themselves. It worked. Just two weeks after the launch, 79% of all employees had seen all the films, some more than once. Now, support channels are being used at a higher rate and the teams at JLR know help is ready and waiting whenever they might need it.
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