Behind RED January, every creative step of the way.

My friend, Hannah Beecham received an MBE in the honours list this year, and it is truly deserved. She had an idea back in 2015 to try and help shine a light on mental wellbeing by running every day in January of 2016 to raise money for the mental health charity Mind.

Physical activity has a positive impact on mental wellbeing and, as a keen runner herself, Hannah decided to marry the two together and Run Every Day January was conceived. A simple and concise premise that was born after witnessing the positive effect exercise had on her own mums’ experience with depression.

Hannah and I go way back to our film marketing days, and during that time we both became aware of each other’s desire to make a difference when it came to mental health awareness. Just as Hannah’s mum had her struggles so too did mine and this unique bond between Hannah and I is the reason behind my passion for the RED January movement.

Everyone has mental health and each person’s experience is different, whether it’s acute schizophrenia, depression or simply a case of the blues. Back in 2015 there was very little being done to remove the stigma from these issues and Run Every Day January was the first step in the incredible RED January journey.

I personally have been creatively responsible for RED January since 7th July 2015, the day that Hannah first discussed her idea with me. From that moment forward I began to think of ways to promote the idea. The movement clearly needed an emblem, or symbol, that people could get behind and wear with pride, but more importantly RED January needed a voice that was not only passionate and caring but also understanding.

As the initial idea was tailored around Hannah’s love of running it was clear to me that we needed something that just spelt it out, no messing around with anything too flamboyant, an icon that said ‘what it did on the tin’ as well as typographically hitting the message home.

The first iteration of R.E.D January was launched on 2nd November 2015 with literally a logo, a T-shirt, some flyers, a sponsorship form and a fund-raising ideas PDF. Run Every Day January, in its first guise, was a fund-raising charitable challenge.

Remember, this was the first time that R.E.D January had ever been seen - there were no paid ads, no PR and no partnerships. Hannah, myself and our friends were promoting running every day in January on our own Facebook and Instagram pages – that was it.

RED January 2016 raised over ￡22k - IncREDible!

Through 2017 and 2018 R.E.D. January continued to be a fund-raising platform under the same guise as ‘Run Every Day’. Hannah and myself were creating social content (and generating promotional ideas, including T-shirts and flyers etc) in our spare time, as by day she was marketing films and I was busy running the Yolk Creative London Studio. Official R.E.D January social channels were opened as we pulled in favours and worked towards trying to widen the net as much as possible.

R.E.D January ’17 & ’18 managed to raise over ￡1m for Mind! A staggering amount considering we were, for the most part, still just promoting through nonpaid social channels and word of mouth.

As I previously stated, both Hannah and I are passionate about not just talking about the importance of mental health, but actually making a positive difference. Running every day is a fantastic challenge, and is perfect for fund-raising, but it can be limiting to people of varying abilities. Hannah recognised that to make this movement more accessible, and not just a fund-raising activity, we needed to evolve it from singularly running and move the messaging to being ‘active’ instead.

Now, that posed a few creative questions. Clearly Run Every Day equals R.E.D and that had been the foundation of the campaign to date. To shift focus from ‘running’ to being ‘active your way’ we needed to change tact in order to recruit new REDers (our affectionate name for all RED community members) whilst also reintroducing RED to the existing community of over 30K women, men and children.

During our discussions on how to take a step forward and be more than just a running challenge for January, we came to the logical conclusion we needed something more than R.E.D January and so RED Together was introduced as the overarching ‘mother brand’. This would allow us to be bigger than the month of January whilst keeping community at the heart of everything RED did. In turn this would allow us to shift our messaging from just running to ‘being active for better mental health’ - R.E.D January had ‘run’ its course, running every day was no longer the focus, we were now beating the blues away in January by being RED.

Wonderfully for the 2018/2019 campaign we managed to secure some funding for the movement. We had a lot of work to do, we needed to reintroduce RED January as something for everyone of all abilities and that it was not just about running anymore.

Clearly this amount of work isn’t something that you can do in your spare time and therefore, incredibly, Hannah chose to leave her full-time job in the film industry for good and focus all her efforts on promoting RED January. For me, I now needed to bring the work into the studio in order to ensure as much experience and expertise would be utilised for the success of the movement.

Strategy, planning, creativity, photography, social content, email content, T-shirt design & production, packaging, flyers, medals, website design and a plethora of other collateral for local Minds all needed to be designed, produced and delivered for the beginning of October - when RED January 2019 registration was to go live.

Thanks to the wonderful team of people around me at Yolk (and our partners) we were able to produce a consistent visual language, as well as a tone of voice, that would set the foundations for where RED January is today.

In 2016 there were roughly 1,000 REDers in total, but by the end of January 2019 there were over 60,000! Thanks to people like Dame Kelly Holmes and Fearne Cotton (and other well-known figures) taking part we reached a much wider audience allowing Hannah to explain the benefits of physical activity on your mental wellbeing and move the conversation away from just running.

Post RED January 2019 we continued to support the community with helpful hints and tips as well as words of encouragement from other REDers on the official social channels. The mission for the year was to ensure that everyone understood the shift from running to being active in preparation for January 2020.

January 2020 would be the last time that Mind would be RED’s primary charity partner. Between 2016 and 2020 the amazing RED Community had raised over ￡2.5m to help keep the conversation about mental health going. I know that I can speak for Hannah and myself when I say that the RED Community’s commitment and selflessness through this time was an inspiration to us both.

No one was really prepared for what happened next. Covid 19, the subsequent pandemic and lockdown turned the world upside down. With uncertainty all around this was an incredibly sensitive and important time for everyone. Through RED Together we continued to promote activity as, more than ever, the need to take care of mental health was paramount. For obvious reasons, RED January 2021 was going to be different. Hannah and I spoke often about how to comfort and support the community whilst giving them inspiration and good news to spur them on.

That year Hannah and I literally went back to basics, the most important thing was ensuring that RED January took place, regardless of the situation the world was in. Working remotely and brainstorming ways in which we could keep community spirit alive whilst everyone needed to stay isolated was intense and rewarding at the same time. I am full of admiration for Hannah’s commitment and resolve during this time, to say it was a challenge would be selling her efforts short, but she handled the situation delicately, and with a calmness that many would struggle to achieve.

As RED?January’s?reason for being is to?empower people to directly?support their own mental wellbeing, whilst raising funds to?support others, the 2021?campaign needed to continue to be mindful and?respectful of everyone’s?situation, whilst also showing the continued importance of?supporting mental health charities. We were proud to champion a new charity partner, Sport in Mind.?(Sport In Mind are the UK’s leading mental health sports charity and deliver physical activity (sport, walking, dance and movement, gardening and exercise sessions) projects in partnership with the amazing NHS in order to aid recovery, promote mental wellbeing, improve physical health, combat social isolation and empower people to move their lives forward in a positive direction.)

Being ‘together in purpose, if not in person’ was our mantra through this tumultuous time. RED January had successfully evolved from being seen as just a charity fund-raising activity into a nationwide movement for better mental wellbeing through activity.

If ever there was the definition for ‘a passion project’ RED January, is it for me. Beating the winter blues with RED has always been the goal and to say that I’m proud of the work that myself, my friends and my colleagues have done over the years to promote and support RED January is an understatement. To anyone who has taken the time to share a social post that we created, buy a T-shirt that we produced, encouraged others to get involved in a movement that we truly believe in, I’m very grateful (especially the REDer who had my logo tattooed onto themselves!).

Over the last 2 years, RED January has continued to grow in stature (and in recognition) with research from the University of Oxford proving the positive effects RED has on its participants during January. The RED Community has grown to over 250k. In total RED January has raised over ￡3m for mental health charities across the UK and this continues to climb year on year. Hannah was awarded the Prime Ministers Points Of Light Award last year and this year has received an MBE.

I’d like to say a very heartfelt congratulations to my friend Hannah Beecham MBE . Her dedication to the cause and her unwavering belief in ‘a movement that makes a difference’ is exceptional and should be applauded. I am glad that her and RED January are receiving the recognition that they deserve - something tells me that this is still only the beginning.

I'd also like to give my absolute gratitude to the following people who have always gone above and beyond the call of duty and without whom RED wouldn't be what it is today:

Paul Maskell Joel James Devlin Daniel Spraggon Lyn Taylor Ron Watts Maria Rosberg Oran Cowell Mateusz G?bala