The latest CALM campaign is truly haunting, says Ottilie Ross, creative director, MHP Mischief

A worthy budget for a great cause.

The visuals alone are impactful.

CALM has gone all out for this campaign, with 6,929 brightly coloured birthday balloons installed in Westfield Shopping Centre, each representing a young person who died by suicide in the last decade. Get closer, and each has a number—the birthday year the child never reached.

For me, this is a standout creative for three clear reasons.

Firstly, it’s slick as anything. Too often, earned-first ideas are given too small a production budget, and even brilliant campaigns end up looking… underwhelming. I feel like this exact same idea on a shoe-string would have lacked the punch this generates because corners would have had to be cut.

It could have been nearly 7,000 balloons shoved in a net, some with numbers on, some not, there for a quick picture story but not arranged into such an artistic layout that This Morning can come and film in front of it and relevant influencers can use it as a backdrop to convey the message.

There are even voice notes and audio exhibits from family members, making it a multi-sensory experience versus solely visual. So much attention to detail has gone in that the effect is weightier for it.

Secondly, it’s part of a series. We all remember the ‘The Last Photo’ CALM campaign in 2021 that was designed to provide a rug-pull moment – you think you’re seeing a load of happy, smiling, carefree young people, you get closer and realise this is the last photo of people who went on to take their own lives.

The emotion we all feel looking at each of these campaigns, a second of ‘oh lovely, smiling faces’ or ‘oh nice, birthday balloons’ to the sucker punch of reality, is exactly how families of those left behind report feeling. Suicide is often hideously surprising. The creatives behind these two pieces have distilled emotional whiplash into awareness-driving campaigns, and it’s so bloody effective because it mirrors the sad reality for too many families.

And finally, it takes the attention it draws and swiftly and seamlessly focuses it on what people can do to prevent more tragedy. There are CALM CARE Kits, research reassuring parents that talking about suicide won’t inspire kids to think of it, but exactly the opposite, and a whole load of resources signposted.

It’s rare to see this level of consideration, production, and longevity in an earned-first creative moment. 

This needs to be the norm. I see too many good ideas let down by cheap executions, and too many (absolutely can’t stand this word, it needs to be banned) “stunts” which are quick-and-dirty by definition, that devalue a lot of what we do. 

Well done adam&eve and Hope&Glory for pulling this off, and raising the bar.