Never a Bother Campaign

About Project

Never a Bother is a bold campaign created with the California Department of Public Health’s Office of Suicide Prevention to normalize conversations around suicide prevention and encourage young people to seek help before, during, and after a crisis. The campaign created a welcoming, youth-driven, and authentic online space with a bold approach: visually inviting content, complemented with authentic stories from youth-generated engagement that validates young people’s feelings; letting them know they are never a bother.

A Bold, Youth-Driven Visual Identity
Listening sessions revealed youth didn’t want dark, heavy imagery reinforcing negative mental health stereotypes. Instead, they preferred warmth and optimism, which led to the creation of bright, nature-inspired visuals with expressive illustrated characters. Our designs made the campaign’s social channels feel approachable and shareable, with levity that transformed suicide prevention messaging into something youth wanted and shared their feeds.

Storytelling to Break Down Barriers
To ensure authenticity in our campaign, we collaborated with diverse young people across the state who shared their lived experiences with mental health, specifically around suicide prevention, and reaching out for help for themselves or a friend. Their peer-to-peer storytelling built trust and genuine engagement, making the campaign feel owned by young people rather than imposed on them.

High-Impact Celebrity Engagement
We didn’t just choose a celebrity—we chose a true advocate. Through social listening and guidance from our Youth Advisory Board, Megan Thee Stallion emerged as the perfect voice. Her lived experience and outspoken advocacy for mental health made her message and validation to youth feel authentic, relatable and impossible to ignore, driving deeper engagement and impact.

Community-First Approach
Messages about mental health support must be adapted to the unique communities they serve. That’s why we partnered with 34 community-based organizations (CBOs) and Tribal partners across California to adapt our campaign. These organizations were trained to create social-first content tailored to their communities with unique graphics, messaging, and more to reach youth they serve. By amplifying authentic, local voices, we ensured that every message resonated deeply and reflected the lived experiences of diverse communities across California.

Engaging, User-Generated Social Content
Our social feeds featured content creators answering real mental health questions—such as how to check on a friend or what happens when calling 988. The playful aesthetic of our user-generated-content made tough topics feel more approachable and aligned with social media trends. We reshared unique content from our community partners to elevate local voices and highlight a variety of ways to get help in a mental health crisis.

Our campaign’s impact:
- We’ve gained 830+ million impressions across paid and organic media since our campaign’s launch, and are projected to have over 1 billion by the end of the campaign in June 2025.
- Over 1.5 million Californians have accessed the Never a Bother website.
- Megan Thee Stallion’s partnership drove 5.8M+ impressions and 5,000+ new followers in one activation. The partnership received coverage from national outlets such as People, Billboard, and more.
- Never a Bother has been covered in over 50 news outlets.