Who: CNESST (Quebec's body overseeing occupational health and safety), with Cossette for strategy and creative; Les Enfants for production (directed by Ivan Grbovic); Mathematic for VFX and online; Circonflex for audio; and Cossette Media for media.
What: "Fiction," CNESST's first campaign focusing on workplace mental health. The aim is to raise awareness among both employers and employees about the impact of emotional abuse, and the need to ensure that employees' mental wellbeing is receiving the same consideration as physical wellbeing.
What: "Fiction," CNESST's first campaign focusing on workplace mental health. The aim is to raise awareness among both employers and employees about the impact of emotional abuse, and the need to ensure that employees' mental wellbeing is receiving the same consideration as physical wellbeing.
When & Where: The Quebec campaign launched in November, with French-language creative running through Dec. 31 across TV, digital signage in office buildings, web banners, social media, and content created in partnership with La Presse and Quebecor. There are also radio ads running in both English and French.
Why: Previous campaigns for CNESST have focused on the physical aspects of workplace safety, but for this year's campaign, the organization tasked Cossette with speaking to the equally damaging emotional damage caused by verbal abuse, and sexual and psychological harassment.
"We're used to [showing] arms getting ripped off, or a person falling, and [the importance of] wearing the right equipment and following the right procedures," said Cossette creative director Richard Rochette-Villeneuve. "This year, was a bit different."
How: One of the discussions during the creative ideation process was about the kinds of abuse and/or intimidation capable of causing psychological harm. What made it tricky was that the client didn't want to portray humans as being responsible for the harm.
That created a challenge for the creative team, which finally hit upon the idea of using scary fictional creatures—an alien, goblins and a Game of Thrones-worthy dragon—as metaphors for the kinds of emotional abuse that people can be exposed to at work.
These fictional creatures exist in a variety of workplace settings, such as an office environment for the alien (representing sexual harassment), a warehouse environment for the goblins (psychological harassment), and a public-facing role for the dragon. All three of the scenarios are depicted in the campaign's visually striking 30-second video, as well as individually in digital OOH and social posts.
The visuals are intentionally unnerving, such as a young woman being terrified by an alien that comes up behind her and places its hands on her shoulders, a representation of the casual sexual harassment that women regularly face in office environments.
And we quote: “In terms of prevention, the CNESST wants to make workplaces aware of the fact that occupational health is as much about mental health as physical health. To that end, mental health must be given the same attention by workplaces in their approach to care. The problems associated with this often invisible risk can lead to major social, human and financial costs for the whole community.” —Manuelle Oudar, CEO, CNESST
[videopress oZSI6Axs]
