Entry Category
Single Entry – Social Media Marketing in a social marketing program
Name of Intervention/ Program
Never a Bother
Background and Situation Analysis
Young people across the country are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. According to former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, there’s been a 57% increase in the suicide rate among young people in the US since the decade before COVID-19, and 44% of American high school students feel persistently sad or hopeless. California has the greatest number of children under the age of 18 in the country — and suicide remains a leading cause of death among youth and young adults ages 10 to 18. While all youth and young adults across California are affected, Black and African-American youth, Hispanic and Latinx youth, Native youth, LGBTQIA+ youth, and those with intersecting identities are disproportionately impacted. Numerous past initiatives — both statewide and across California’s 58 diverse counties — have been launched to raise awareness and prevent suicide; with campaigns focusing on increasing knowledge of suicide warning signs to initiatives focused on promoting calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In response to the urgent youth mental health crisis, Assembly Bill 2112 in California established the Office of Suicide Prevention within the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to elevate suicide as a public health concern. Civilian was hired by CDPH to develop a statewide, youth-centered social marketing campaign to help stem these trends, with goals to increase awareness of suicide warning signs and utilization of suicide prevention resources before, during, and after a crisis, and, over time, decrease suicidal ideation, attempts, and deaths by suicide. Following the principle of “nothing about us without us,” Civilian developed an award-winning, multicultural campaign co-created by youth for youth. Through engagement with over 500 youth, young adults, and caregivers across California through listening sessions, focus groups, and co-creation workshops — along with partnerships with over 34 community-based organizations (CBOs) and Tribal partners reaching all 58 California counties — the Never a Bother campaign has emerged as a true testament to the power of youth voice. Our campaign has grown far beyond a traditional public health social media marketing campaign; it’s become a social movement fundamentally changing the narrative about suicide prevention and fostering the belief that seeking help is an act of strength, and not a bother to others. We’ve pushed the boundaries of what a government campaign can do — from a partnership with Grammy-winning artist Megan Thee Stallion (sharing crisis support resources and letting young people know that they are never a bother) to Never a Bother showing up in places young people talk about and follow, like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. With over 850 million impressions across paid and organic media since its launch in April 2024, and over 1.9 million unique users accessing resources on our website, Never a Bother has become far more than a campaign — it has become a powerful movement supporting young Californians anytime before, during, or after a crisis.
Priority Audiences(s)
We launched our campaign and social media strategy to two priority audiences: 1. Phase 1 reached disproportionately impacted youth and young adults ages 14–25 across California; 2. Phase 2 reached parents, caregivers, and other supportive adults of youth and young adults up to age 25. We segmented our youth audience messaging towards youth who are at risk or have experienced mental health challenges in addition to messaging to their friends and peers in a position to provide support, as youth are more likely to tell a friend if they are struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Behavioral Objectives
For youth and their parents and caregivers supporting them, our behavioral goal was to increase help-seeking behavior, specifically through reaching out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, Teen Line (a peer support line), or accessing support through our Never a Bother website. Yet to increase help-seeking behavior, we needed to build a multi-pronged messaging strategy for our campaign to address barriers they experienced to our desired behavior. To reach our behavioral objectives, we first needed to: -Validate young people’s feelings and struggles, letting them know what they feel and are going through is real, they are never a bother, and help is available. For parents and caregivers, we needed to provide skills and words to validate young people’s feelings and listen without judgment; -Raise awareness about suicide warning signs, and build knowledge on multiple support resources that exist, and various ways to access them (e.g. text messaging, chat, calls). Raising awareness of crisis lines was particularly important for our caregiver audience, who shared they did not know where to go for support in a crisis; -Build trust in existing support resources, by sharing what happens before, during, and after you reach out for help, including who staffs crisis lines, what questions they ask, and what to expect after you reach out; and finally -Share positive stories of people feeling better after reaching out for help to build trust and self-efficacy in their ability to support themselves, their child, or a friend, and decrease stigma towards help-seeking.
Description of Strategy/Intervention
Our social media marketing strategy was built on our behavioral objectives — aiming to increase help-seeking behavior by first validating youth’s feelings, building awareness of existing crisis supports, building trust in existing resources and breaking down barriers in accessing them, and finally, sharing positive, genuine stories of help-seeking to break down stigma and encourage others to do the same for themselves, their child, or a friend. To develop our campaign we engaged in the following activities to ensure authentic, resonant, and engaging content: -Youth Advisory Board: We convened a monthly, paid Youth Advisory Board, made up of diverse youth with lived experience. They served as true co-creators, actively shaping our campaign from research and strategy to messaging and creative design. Their direct involvement ensured the campaign remained deeply personal and genuinely reflective of youth voices and experiences. -Statewide youth co-creation: We engaged over 500 teens (ages 13–17) and transition-age youth (18–25), along with parents and caregivers from across the state in listening sessions, co-creation workshops, and in-person and virtual focus groups to develop and test our campaign messages and materials. We utilized their feedback to finetune our campaign assets and creative, and in some cases, further “transcreated” them, ensuring we adapted our copy to create a unique campaign language resonant with young people themselves. -Partnerships: We partnered with 34 youth-serving CBOs and Tribal partners in California and worked with their youth to customize, adapt, and further extend the reach of our campaign online. Based on our robust audience-centered research, we learned the following to inform our social media strategy: -Creative: Our youth co-creators wanted to move away from gloomy depictions of suicide prevention, opting instead for bright, hopeful, retro-inspired visuals. Cartoon flowers and other animated characters authentically reflect diverse emotions and identities, openly sharing relatable thoughts through speech balloons — giving voice to feelings young people may be having but not vocalizing. This approach drew users into our campaign with visual maximalism and message minimalism. -Messaging: To ensure our campaign would be as engaging and relatable as possible, we devised a name and tagline that could be easily translated to Spanish and adapted to a variety of contexts. The overarching message “never a bother” directly addresses young people, validating their mental health challenges and encouraging them to seek help. We extended that message to “Bother me when…,” inviting young people to encourage their friends to reach out when they need help. Finally, we further adapted that message for parents and caregivers as “Bother them when…,” inviting them to check in with the young people in their lives and offer support if something feels off. -New social mediums: TikTok was identified as a key medium for social media engagement through short video content, in addition to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Civilian created new channels for the campaign, with regular content schedules and calendars aligned with observances important to our audiences, such as Pride Month, back-to-school, Mental Health Awareness Month, and more. -User-generated content: Short, visually engaging user-generated content talking about suicide prevention warnings signs and help-seeking, aligned with current TikTok trends, was key to our campaign. We worked with BIPOC youth content creators to create unique videos that responded to the following prompts, among others: “What I wish my parents knew ___” “Bother me when___” “Call 988 when ____” -Co-created social media content: Our work with youth-serving partners across the state revealed the need for custom campaign asset templates for organizations to customize as they see fit. We created a Never a Bother “event-in-a-box” with campaign materials, social media templates, and challenges for social media content. These challenges included “creating a Never a Bother space” and a “Bother Me” day of the week for youth mental health groups. Organizations and youth would post their content on the relevant platform and compete in contests judged by campaign partners for the most original social content. To date, over 450+ unique posts have been created by youth-serving CBO and Tribal partners for Never a Bother. Impactful Influencer: The need for a vocal, influential voice to carry our message on social media channels was clear from youth engagement. -Grammy Award-winning artist and philanthropist Megan Thee Stallion was identified by our youth advisors as a prominent voice who could share her mental health struggles and strengthen awareness and trust in resources like 988 and Teen Line. Her unique interview and content reinforced our campaign’s core message, in her own voice, with the refrain: “Hotties…You are NEVER a Bother.”
Implementation
Based on our audience-centered research while working hand-in-hand with youth, we launched our Never a Bother campaign with its accompanying social channels in April 2024, via a live-streamed event in partnership with a Native youth-serving organization. Never a Bother has successfully implemented key recommendations from youth for our social media strategy through the following tactics: Bringing characters to life: Our Instagram and TikTok feeds are filled with vibrant, animated flower characters addressing real questions young people have and shared with us — How do I talk to a friend I’m worried about? What happens when I call 988? The playful aesthetic makes tough topics feel approachable, while the nostalgia factor helps deepen engagement. Animated content: Short video animations, such as the animated video “What happens when you call 988” were critical to our social media strategy. Videos such as these raise awareness of resources and break down barriers and misperceptions young people shared as hesitations for calling crisis lines, and build trust through an engaging, animated format with our signature Never a Bother characters. Candid testimonials: Video testimonials from youth across the state form the heart of the campaign across our website and social channels. Each video showcases a powerful personal story of courage and resilience and speaks profoundly to the positive impact of seeking help. Elevating youth voices: We partnered with youth creators to produce unfiltered user-generated content about seeking help, sharing resources, and supporting peers. Their honesty and vulnerability reshaped perceptions of what getting help looks like. Trending and relatable social media content: Along with our youth creators, we posted relatable content that tapped into existing TikTok trends such as: “We Listen and We Don’t Judge,” “Suspect Challenge,” “Camera Flip,” “Get Ready With Me,” “Man on the Street Interview,” and “Spotify Wrapped.” High-impact celebrity partnership: Our partnership with Megan Thee Stallion wasn’t just a moment — it was a movement. By amplifying her message across her Instagram and TikTok channels, she reached millions, reinforcing the campaign’s core theme: No one should feel like a burden for struggling with their mental health. Community-led storytelling: By regularly resharing content from our CBO partners, we elevated local voices and highlighted unique ways our campaign was adapted, amplifying perspectives often missing from mainstream mental health conversations. Community management: Due to the sensitive nature of our campaign, we developed robust community engagement guidelines for our team’s responses and engagement on our social channels, inclusive of pre-developed responses to questions or messages calling for help, along with guidelines on how our social media channels are monitored.
Evaluation Methods and Results
The social movement we envisioned with Never a Bother quickly gained momentum throughout California and beyond. Since launching in April 2024, Never a Bother has generated nearly 850 million impressions across paid and organic media, sparking vital statewide conversations. Our website has drawn over 1.9 million unique visitors and 2.1 million sessions, highlighting deep audience engagement. Our partnership with Grammy-winning artist Megan Thee Stallion significantly expanded our campaign’s reach. On World Mental Health Day, Megan shared her personal journey in an exclusive interview on our site, emphasizing to young people that they are never a bother. This collaboration resulted in high-profile coverage from Billboard and People, along with posts across Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Megan’s announcement post alone garnered over 6.6 million views, and more than doubled our website visits. We’ve earned 50 media placements, spotlighting our innovative youth co-creation model and its impact on mental health advocacy in diverse communities. Recognized for our success, we were invited to present our work to statewide mental health leaders at NAMI-California and California Mental Health Advocates for Youth, and the campaign received two Shorty Impact Awards. Never a Bother has become far more than a campaign — it is a powerful movement empowering California’s youth to create a more compassionate, understanding, and supportive world. In addition, our campaign has achieved: -Sustained growth and engagement: Never a Bother’s Instagram channel has grown steadily by an average of 10% each month since our launch. -Never a Bother’s Instagram has received over 31.9M paid and organic impressions; of these, 70.2K of impressions were organic -Never a Bother’s TikTok has received over 20,600 organic views -Record-breaking visibility: Megan Thee Stallion’s partnership resulted in 5.8M+ impressions, helping the campaign’s social accounts gain 5,000+ new followers in a single activation -Interaction with notable social media accounts, including: mainstream celebrities, social media influencers, athletes, government officials, and healthcare professionals along with members of our target audiences. -Driving action beyond social: Organic social media drives traffic with 160% higher engagement compared to average traffic sources, resulting in visitors spending more time exploring the site. This highlights the campaign’s effectiveness in moving our audiences from awareness to action.
Entry Letter: B