MOOD tea unites industry to launch campaign to beat youth suicide via The Monkeys
A powerhouse list of Australia’s media and marketing businesses have lent their creative knowhow and donated more than $10m in inventory for an important new campaign for MOOD tea.
Sixty businesses across the media, advertising and marketing industry have donated time, resources and inventory towards the ‘Sip selflessly’ campaign to promote the industry’s first social enterprise product, which donates all profits to fund charities preventing youth suicide.
The campaign is headlined by a pair of TV commercials featuring adults in classic tea-drinking situations, a Regency-period costume drama and an ancient tea master with his student. The scenes are lip-synched with the voices of children relating impactful stories of mental health. These are based on real experiences shared by young people who have been helped by MOOD’s charity partner, batyr.
The creative was developed by The Monkeys, directed by Simon Harsent and the Pool Collective team, with audio by Ralph Van Dijk and Simon Kane at Song Zu.
‘Sip Selflessly’ will roll out across all TV, radio, OOH, digital, social and print channels over the coming weeks following the largest philanthropic media inventory drive our industry has ever seen.
Supporting the campaign launch, MOOD tea ambassadors including author of ‘Tea & Honesty’ Jules Sebastian, Roosters NRL player Luke Keary, TV presenter Liv Phyland, and Tiddas 4 Tiddas founder Marlee Silva will be involved in a PR campaign run by Clear Hayes Consulting, One Green Bean and POEM Group.
All profits raised from MOOD tea go towards funding mental health projects by Backtrack, batyr and The Sebastian Foundation which are helping save young lives. Programs are focused towards mental health education in schools and suicide prevention.
Says Jenni Hayward, general manager of MOOD: “The hard fact is youth suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in our country – so we wanted to create a campaign which grabs attention and makes people really think about the message.
“We’ve deliberately portrayed real conversations which highlight the everyday challenges facing young people today, including cyber bullying and suicide. Juxtaposing them with classic movie-style tea scenes makes people sit up and take note, and we hope will start meaningful conversations.
Says Vince Lagana, executive creative director, The Monkeys: “It has been a privilege for us to work with the MOOD team and play a small role in all the great things they do for youth mental health. We have been lucky to work on this great product since its inception.
“The ‘Sip Selflessly’ campaign focuses on the dual benefit of Mood Tea – its power to create funding for struggling youth and lift the mood of drinkers at the same time. Our key message is to promote and normalise help-seeking behaviour and highlight that recovery is possible.”
Says Nic Brown, CEO at Batyr: “It’s so important to reach more young people across Australia with stories of hope and resilience, empowering them to reach out for support when they need it, as well as providing the tools they need to better look after themselves and each other.
“With MOOD’s ongoing support, we can make even more impact and continue to equip young people with the skills to take charge of their mental health, to look out for their mates, and change the conversation around mental health.”
Hayward thanked the industry for overwhelming support: “I’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone involved in this campaign, the entire MOOD village army. ‘Sip selflessly’ is a first of its kind, bringing the entire industry together to create an informative, different, and above all effective campaign that will truly make a positive impact.”
Agencies & companies from the industry:
Accenture Interactive
Amazon Advertising
Clear Hayes Consulting
Cream
Elephants Can Dance
Facebook
Fjord
Just Eggs
Kantar
Maud
Mindbox
MiQ
OMD
One Green Bean
Poem
Pool Collective
Song Zu
Cream Electric Art
The Monkeys
VMG
We Are Social
With support from:
A&O
Storage King
TeaVision
The Jacky Winter Group
Venture Consulting
Media outlets:
ACM
ARE Media
ARN
Broadsheet
Concrete Playground
Facebook
Foxtel Media
Goa
Google
Guardian
JCDecaux
Lad Bible
LinkedIn
Mamamia
News Corp
Nine Network
NOVA
oOh! Media
Pedestrian
Playground XYZ
Prime
QMS
REA Group
SBS
SCA
Scentre Group
Seven West Media
Shopper
Snap
Ten ViacomCBS
Tik Tok
Tonic Media Network
Torch
Twitter
Val Morgan
Verizon Media
VMO
WIN
Campaign Credits:
The Monkeys:
Managing Director: Matt Michael
Senior Business Director: Anna Willis
Senior Business Manager: Mitch Bevan
Senior Planner: Charlotte Marshal
Executive Creative Director: Vince Lagana
Copywriter: Max Rapley
Art Director: Tessa Chong
Head of Production: Penny Brown
Producer: Katie Bassett
Director: Simon Harsent
DOP: Jani Hakli
Prod Co: The Pool Collective
Managing Director: Cameron Grey
Production Manager: Jordy Pert
Post Production: The Editors
Editor: Chay MacTavish
Colourist: Liam Riley
Online Operator: Matthew Edwards
Post Producer: Adrian Konarski
Casting: Toni Higginbotham
Sound Design: Song Zu
Sound Designer: Simon Kane
Producer: Katrina Aquila
Photographer: Danny Eastwood
Producer: Hannah Nixon
Retouching: Cream Electric Art
Voice Direction: Ralph van Dijk
38 Comments
Broach the issue of youth suicide with poorly executed remakes from films with children’s voices? This is so bloody weird and confusing.
I thought it was easy to understand. Issues we develop in the past manifest in our behaviour today, and it’s important to recognise those things and talk them out with someone we trust in order to work through those issues before they fester. This could be as simple as meeting someone for tea, which has traditionally been the non alcoholic social lubricant that people have used for aeons to facilitate conversation… most famously in Japanese tea culture, but it doesn’t have to be this serious, which is why using the kids’ voices to illustrate that the ceremony around it all is irrelevant and it’s the substance of the chat that matters, is what works.
Deeply confusing executions
These spots are a lot of things, but confusing and poorly executed they are most certainly not. Really smart way to cut through the usual charity bs and create something truly memorable. Wish I’d made them
So powerful, so nicely done.
Makes me want to buy.
Oh these are really nice.
Beautifully crafted.
Well done Harsent and Monkeys.
Tone deaf garbage. A really serious issue wrapped in a failed execution.
Saw on TV. Wasn’t sure who did them. Should have known it was Monkey magic.
Please experts jump in and condemn these – they are really irresponsible or correct me – please
No trigger warning
Age inappropriate content
Normalising suicide
Hahaha what is this???
Thats interesting that execution had me watching for sure
These caught me off guard. Deep issues handled brilliantly. Nice work.
… in the midst of trying to be clever, we forget about the intensity of issues. This is tone-deaf AF.
Absolutely no idea what is going on here.. Watched them all, also read the press release and I still don’t know what it is.
Can you buy a tea?
It may be unintentional, but it feels like you’re making a joke of the issue,
especially with the choice of movie references, like a bad lip-sync sketch.
It sounds like you did make them..
Whybin spot for RSL a while back. Kids voices coming out of men.
Great initiative, love the work and hats off to unltd for getting everyone behind the cause.
In the famous film scenes they are drinking tea. And the product is tea? Right. Gotcha. Didn’t clock any of that as I was blind-sided by the children’s voices’ talking about youth suicide in the form of a 2003 SNL sketch.
Hang your heads in shame, these are beyond irresponsible
Well done Simon. Nice work.
The tea is peyote
Bloody nice
Got to love this blog.
These ads are great. I got them instantly. What’s not to get? Yes, they hit me hard but that’s the intent. I never once thought they were a comedy sketch because they are not funny. What’s even more powerful is knowing these are based on true stories as mentioned in the press release. They will cut through particularly in the tea category.
For the angry warriors, go direct your hate to what is happening in Afghanistan at the moment. Your skill are better used there.
Beautiful work Simon, as per usual. Thanks for the opp.
Can you get rid of the single-serve foil wrappers? Love the tea but it’s very heavy on packaging
The Pride and Prejudice style ad works.. it’s not great but it works.
But the 1st one, with the two blokes. Actually shocked this is still out in the open, and have not yet been pulled.
The execution makes it feel like a Charlie’s Angels themed skit that is making a joke about suicide? Not even going to go into tone deafness of the cultural appropriation in this one, either.
This is so irresponsible, and really poorly handled.
Reminded me (in a good way)of the fabulous Anzac Day Appeal campaign for the RSL done many years ago at the Campaign Palace by Scott Whybin and Graeme Smith. Only in that instance young kids were ‘miming’ the voices of veterans retelling their war stories. Very powerful stuff. When done we’ll it’s a very powerful technique.
Tackling a very serious issues in a very elegant way. These are handled beautifully.
I understand not what this execution going for.
Many layers confusion make.
Not understand Target Audience will.
Cool. Care to explain for the rest of us?
Right, so we’re meant to add ‘Tea Drinking Scenes from Esoteric Movies’ to our list of borrowed interest now?
They spent $10 MILLION of donated money on this confusing garbage????
https://www.adnews.com.au/news/the-advertising-industry-s-10-million-campaign-for-social-enterprise-mood-tea
Imagine if they donated that money directly to youth suicide services instead of… whatever this is.
COVID is taxing us all. And it appears that MOOD tea is delivering some incredible good in this area.
But I can’t think of a more ill-conceived, insensitive, and downright belittling concept than this one. I wonder if any of the people involved have ever thought about suicide? I have. A lot. And this made me angry within five seconds of watching it. It felt like it was making fun of these thoughts. That trying to be clever was more important than trying to deliver empathy. So many amazing people and companies have donated their time to something that feels like it could do more damage than good. Hopefully, this doesn’t torpedo the MOOD tea brand. Because that would be a real shame.
@A serious problem.
Sorry to hear. I too have had thoughts of suicide in the past. I really hope you’re getting the help and support you need
On the ads, I was actually pleased to see them and was glad that for once someone was tackling the issue in an impactful and compelling way. It’s the first time any communication for youth mental health stood out to me. No one talks about it. That’s what makes these so confronting. I think they were handled nicely. Made me watch twice. My opinion.
Again, hope you’re getting the support you need.
So tonally off. Feels like a joke or a scene from a movie that parodies ad people and the kind of ideas we think are right.
Well done Mood & co! Love this campaign.
How did this get through….tasteless