With #DobaraPoocho, McCann brings mental health to the forefront

Two years after she publicly shared her battle with depression, actor Deepika Padukone launched a national public awareness campaign about mental health on Mental Health Day. The campaign has been unveiled by The Live Love Laugh Foundation (TLLLF), which is championed by Padukone.

The campaign, created by McCann Worldgroup, aims to break the stigma around mental health by urging people to spot the signs of depression among friends and family and reach out to those who could be suffering from mental disorders. Portraying real life situations, the campaign seeks to bring conversations around mental health into the mainstream.

The campaign uses the tag line #DobaraPoocho (Ask Again). Depression affects over 120 million people worldwide. It can interfere with a person’s ability to work, make relationships difficult, and ruin quality of life. In severe cases it leads to suicide, causing 850,000 deaths a year.

‘How are you?’, ‘How was your day?’, ‘What’s up?’ are asked as a form of greeting. Very often they are empty tokens of communication – asked and then immediately forgotten. We do not wait for an open, heartfelt response and we’d be taken aback if the person actually responded honestly on her or his state of mind at that moment.

“In the times we are living today, we have become so competitive, which is a good thing, but we have become extremely insensitive too,” noted Padukone.

Elaborating on The Live Love Laugh Foundation, Prasoon Joshi, Chief Creative Officer India, McCann Worldgroup, said, “The truth is that behind that mask, one out of every ten Indians are afflicted with depression and anxiety. ‘Dobara Poocho’ was born out of this very need to look at someone again, to observe that someone closely again, to be aware of his or her nuances again, to hold the person close again, to ask again.”

He further said, “The campaign film for ‘Dobara Poocho’ features simple stories of regular people courageously facing and fighting depression. It is a testament to the strength and courage of the human spirit. The print campaign showcases real people who have gone through or are going through depression, and fought the illness to become stronger and whole.”

#DobaraPoocho will run across television, print, digital and radio and comes even as India prepares to cope with the severe economic and societal burden brought on by the epidemic of mental illness in the country.

The Live Love Laugh Foundation - Dobara Poocho:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v9Oc4yKWmY

According to the World Health Organisation, 100 million Indians suffer from some form of mental illness, with only 6,500 trained psychiatrists and 22,000-25,000 mental health workers, including psychologists and counsellors.

At 36 per cent, India has recorded the highest rate of major depression in the world. The stress could be attributed to the unprecedented social and economic change the country is undergoing, which often brings depression in its wake.

Campaign credits:
Creative agency: McCann Worldgroup
Chief Creative Officer: Prasoon Joshi
Creative Team: Pradyumna Chauhan, Puneet Kapoor, Nishant Pratap, Mahesh Kawthankar, Vikram Dhembare, Samiksha Saxena, Sheel D’souza
Strategic Planning: Suraja Kishore, Rajesh Sharma, Neerja Goswami
Account Management: Tarannum Romani, Samir Sagar
Production House: Nirvana Films