Missed Birthdays: The Powerful Campaign Bringing Awareness to Suicide Prevention

This week’s #FridayAd speaks volumes about a topic that isn’t discussed often enough.

As part of suicide prevention charity, Campaign Against Living Miserably 's latest campaign, this out-of-home display can be seen at the Westfield shopping centre named ‘Missed Birthdays’.

I was walking through Westfield shopping centre weeks back during the installation of the birthday balloons, and thought, without the full context, ‘how cool and celebratory and happy to have all these balloons up’ because that’s what birthdays are, celebratory and happy. It’s a gut-wrenching reality that these balloons represent uncelebrated birthdays; birthdays that were never reached, celebrated or shared, due to lives lost to suicide.

Through working with Man Club Jersey – a men’s mental health charity - we are aware that 10th September is World Suicide Prevention Day and September is Suicide Prevention Month.

Developed in partnership with ITV and created by ad agency adam&eveDDB , Missed Birthdays sends an important message strikingly and effectively.

I found this campaign so moving as it shows the part of grief that only the ones left behind experience. Each vibrant and congratulatory balloon is a life that was taken, with a nod to their families and friends who bear the burden of grief every day, especially on those missed birthdays.

This campaign is unbelievably impactful, clever and thought-provoking. From a more analytical point of view, CALM has done an appreciable job at putting themselves in the griever’s shoes and recognising ‘Missed Birthdays’ as a universal touchpoint to effectively communicate to the public.

It is exactly the kind of action we need to remove the stigmas surrounding suicide, as talking is the first step to developing solutions.

- Jade O'Donovan