Future Generali pledges to make mental health conversation mainstream

With an aim to initiate healthy conversations around mental health, Future Generali India Insurance Company, has released a video series conceptualised by Wondrlab.

 

This initiative is the second phase of FGI's #HealthInsideOut campaign and focusses on creating awareness about active mental health issues. The videos show inanimate objects at the receiving end of the owner’s wrath, due to negative emotions which are possible signs of underlying mental illness.  

Ruchika Varma, CMO, Future Generali India Insurance, said, “Currently more than 7.5% of India’s population suffers from some form of mental illness and WHO estimates this number to rise by 20% towards the end of the year. As a brand known for innovation and empathy, we want to propel a movement to get Indians to take their mental health seriously. In the first phase, we gave people a measurement tool, the Total Health Score, to assess their mental health. This campaign builds on the first phase with the aim of creating awareness that one could be suffering from mental health issues without even realising it. 

 

"During our multiple conversations with mental health experts and the affected parties, we found that the first manifestation of mental health issues is inflicted on inanimate objects. Humanising such objects, our campaign tells a compelling story from their perspective, urging the audience to seek timely help and realise the gravity of these issues,” added Varma.

 

Amit Akali, co-founder and chief creative officer, Wondrlab, said, “The whole of India lives in denial. We don’t think mental illness exists. That’s why we don’t know what the signs and symptoms are. For us, rage is excused as just having a bad day. So, we needed an idea which doesn’t just inform people what the signs to look out for are, we needed one that could get inside their head to make them reflect on their everyday behaviour to understand their mental state. That’s how we came up with the idea that the objects around us, which face our issues daily, should tell their tale. The brilliant E Suresh and his team at Eekasaurus Studio then brought it alive and actually made a stress ball or a vase speak their heart out, without any special effects or computer graphics, but through painfully executed stop-motion which took over two months to create - a first of its kind in the world.”