Profiting Off Of Pain… the most despicable of Ad Campaigns

My Mental Health is NOT For Sale

It’s that time of year again; it’s #BellLetsTalk day.

So, that means it’s time again for my annual criticism of this outrageous campaign.

Since 2010, Bell has run an annual advertising campaign, which they claim is all about stimulating the “conversation about Canada’s Mental Health”.

Whoever came up with the campaign is a genius.  As a PR and marketing move, it’s phenomenal.  Even their major competitors Rogers and Telus can’t be seen slighting mental health, so they too share tweets and social posts with the hashtag bearing Bell’s name.

And it makes Bell look great to the spoon-fed 140-character social media generation.  This is a major corporate giant getting involved in a major social issue.  The appearance of generosity, philanthropy, and general good-will is extremely well received.

A brilliant marketing strategy for sure.  But a despicable one.

I won’t argue that the day raises awareness of a critical issue when it comes to mental health. I mean sure… it’s gets people talking about it.

But let’s have some real talk;

Depression is scary and debilitating

My mental health issues are minor compared to many… At least now.

Depression is a scary and debilitating condition to have to deal with. It never goes away. Ever. But it can be in most cases managed. I’ve now thankfully, with the help of an amazing therapist, reached the point where I can now identify the signs that I’m starting to spiral, and can manage it fairly well.

That’s not to say that I don’t have inexplicable bad days. Where I’m just down and in a funk for no apparent reason. But most days are good now.

A few years ago things were bad. For a good two-ish years they were really bad. I had a serious drinking problem, one which was not an addiction, but was a coping mechanism. I’m not an alcoholic, what I was, was in a lot of pain, and alcohol numbed that pain. I would have 6-9 beers a night, every night, when I got home from work. Just so I could get myself to pass out asleep.

Obviously the drinking wasn’t healthy, but it wasn’t the problem… the root cause was my depression. The drinking probably in fact saved me. It numbed the pain… yes… but it also kept me from being capable of doing other self harm.

This is also when I started smoking… a habit I still to this day have.  I mean in the past year I managed to switch to vaping, so supposedly less unhealthy, but the habit isn’t kicked.  Smoking helped provide me breaks during the day, brief periods of time to myself.  It helped me manage stress and anxiety, two very powerful contributors to my depression.

Getting home from work was the dangerous part. Every night, coming home, wondering what it would feel like to just slam my truck into one of the light poles along the highway.

What stopped me… stupid as it may seem… was that I didn’t want to wreck my truck. Me I was fully prepared to experience it… but I didn’t want to wreck my truck. What if I lived through it? Then I wouldn’t have my truck anymore and I love my truck.

Let that sink in… the thought process here was “what if I live through it…”. What if I fail?

So I would get myself home to my beer and numb the pain.

Nobody knew. At least I don’t think they did. I lived alone so who would know I was in so much pain that I would literally drink myself to sleep every night?

Thankfully for me… there was this one little part of me… deep inside… that eventually did save me for real. I can’t explain it.

One night the beer wasn’t working anymore. I started thinking about ways I could effectively kill myself. That didn’t involve shutting down a highway or risking anyone else’s life.

Something snapped inside… this isn’t ok anymore Ian. And I went to my computer and looked up help.

Thank God for whatever it was that snapped inside me and saved me. I was lucky. Many are not so lucky.

All the best support networks in the world, of which I had a really, really good and supportive one, don’t mean anything when you’re fighting the battle. It’s internal. No one else can even hope to understand what’s going on inside. Because it doesn’t make sense.

I had a great life. A good job that I actually enjoyed. A loving and supportive family. A good and supportive friends network. Everything right… on paper.

Yet I have this unbearable pain. How do you explain that to someone? You can’t. You know if you try to they won’t understand. If you open up you’ll scare them off. Then you’ll be even more alone. So you keep it bottled up. It’s safer that way.

Healthy? No. But it’s safer.

Nobody likes being around a downer… so you cover it up, put up a front, and hide it from the world.

It’s Not Just Depression

There are many different types of mental health issues.  I can only write about the one I have the most intimate knowledge of.  But all types of mental health issues are very real.

The anguish and pain is so deep, and so incredibly personal.

It takes a lot of effort and energy to get through just a standard good day. Bad days… so much harder.

Social Media Is Bad Enough

Exposing ourselves on social media comes at a great cost.  Everyone in today’s society seems to be affected by the effects social media has had on our world.  From the feelings of not being good enough while scrolling through other’s carefully curated photos on instagram. Snapshots of time, with no real context of what’s happened before or after them.  We don’t know that that happy couple on vacation in Aruba is actually in the middle of a marriage breaking up.  Or that the kid posing in front of his new Range Rover got it as a present from his abusive father as a “shut your mouth” bribe.  All we see is the image of someone doing better than us.  It comes at a cost.

Then there’s the social-mobs; quick to snap decisions about if someone is bad, or if a topic is right.  They come to these decisions from 140 characters or less.  These people are vicious and merciless.  Often the same people who tout their support for #BellLetsTalk.  Well nothing in life can be properly expressed in 140 characters.  And if you historically have been quick to judge online, your platitudes of “I’m here for you” are seen for the empty self-congratulatory measures they are.

Social media is bad enough, then Bell comes along, and trivializes my personal struggle, turning into an advertisement for themselves.  Exploiting the already pained and vulnerable for their own corporate PR.  And everyone jumps right on board.

They want me to share my story, along with their hashtag, to further expand their brand reach to all those within my social circles.  Effectively expecting me to act as an advocate for their corporation, endorsing them.

The topic is a serious one, with very literal life and death consequences. Mental health needs attention and conversation. The stigma needs to be dropped so that people can feel safe talking about it.

But this campaign doesn’t do that.

This campaign is a blatant marketing strategy for Bell to make themselves look like a caring and concerned company. Garner trust and admiration, and by extension… customers.

For me, it trivializes my own condition, exploits my pain and turns me into a commodity to be used and sold.  An extremely unhealthy, and outright dangerous feeling for someone who is already suffering.

It’s bad enough when companies do that with any person or cause… but when you do it with people that are already severely vulnerable…

It would be different if this was a particular organization or cause or group of mental health organizations that ran the day, the hashtag was merely #LetsTalk, and bell just marketed themselves as a sponsor and gave money to the cause.

But it’s not. The day is 100% about Bell, Not mental health. The money raised goes to their own foundation. Which sure, gets distributed to a number of mental health organizations, but Bell decides who’s worthy, and that’s based on who’s going to make Bell look good.

There is no social conscience here.

Their marketing department needed to come up with some sort of campaign that was going to engage people across the country and get Bell lots of attention, and one that was going to be cheap.

Yes. Bell will donate over $6.5 million to mental health charities this year as a result of the use of the hashtag promoting their company yesterday.

For a national campaign that had that sort of reach and enhancement, that’s a marketing departments wet dream. The return on investment is incredible.

All by exploiting already vulnerable and pained individuals.

What’s worse, it’s all superficial bullshit anyway.

All these people tweeting and posting about being there if you need to talk. To reach out. All these people sharing posts and using the hashtag, promoting Bell’s brand, and making themselves feel good in the process…

Then I try to have a conversation about how the campaign upsets and hurts me and makes me feel exploited and used, and I get shut down, told the campaign is amazing, how much money it raises (they’re a corporation, it’s marketing dollars they are “donating”, there’s no money raised. Don’t kid yourself) and how many people it helps…

Well… I’m here telling you right now that it hurts me… so… there’s that.

Last year someone in BC killed themselves jumping off a bridge on #BellLetsTalk day.

There was a story circulating Social about a woman who used to work for Bell Media who was fired after asking for mental health leave.

How many other stories are out there that aren’t public?

Mental health is deeply personal.

And it’s not a commodity available for corporate exploitation.

That doesn’t help.

I’m ok. No need to reach out to me. I’m in a good place with a strong day today…  this post is not a cry for help.

But when you’re having the discussions and participating in the day…

Please

Please

Consider what you’re actually doing, promoting mental health awareness, or promoting bell and contributing to the exploitation of those who are feeling vulnerable.

Both are possible. It’s how you use it and how you participate.

Not everyone battling mental health issues feels the way I do about the campaign. I’m not alone in my views, but I’m also not everyone.

Good can come from it. More good could come from it done differently. But good can come from it.

But if you promote the campaign… throw your support behind it by sharing a post or sharing a story…

Don’t be empty.

Back it up!! Be Real.

Practice what you preach.

Else-wise… don’t bother. Your empty self-satisfying platitudes on social media only make it worse and more lonely for those of us who actually do face the battle on a daily basis.

Consider dropping “bell” from the hashtag you use. Let your followers know you care about the issue and not a corporate advertising campaign. That you’re a legit supporter and someone safe to come to… to open up to.

If you got this far… thanks for reading.

If you didn’t, don’t worry… I’ll likely be copy-pasting this post again next year around this time.