Ten years on... how we used story to launch a global viral campaign and award winning documentary

Ten years ago we created and launched #findmike - a social campaign that would form the basis of our documentary, The Stranger on the Bridge. An idea, a film and an ongoing legacy that as a company we are incredibly proud of. For what it achieved then and what it continues to achieve a decade on.

#findmike began back in 2013 as an ambition to disrupt and challenge how mental health was seen and to create something that would speak to and engage a mass audience, including those who might otherwise never intersect with this subject matter. At the time we were making a lot of branded short form content for mental health organisations and were continually hearing the challenges they faced in trying to reach out beyond viewers who already knew them and aligned with their purpose. Equally, we were frustrated with many of the misconceptions, prejudices and taboos that polluted understanding of mental health and the devastating consequences that this could have.??

Our founders, Sam Forsdike and Rich Bentley, had been aware of Jonny Benjamin’s powerful vlogs about living with schizo-affective disorder and reached out to him with their vision for a project. During the many conversations over many months, Jonny shared what had happened to him on Waterloo Bridge and the stranger who changed his life that day. This was an incredibly personal and intimate experience but we saw how it could also have wider relatability and connection. The story of a Good Samaritan and an act of human kindness had universality, could appeal to mainstream audiences and had potential to drive real, transformative impact beyond the end credits of a film.

We took these themes and devised #findmike. A social media campaign that we could use to help Jonny find his stranger but simultaneously get people sharing their own experiences of human connection and compassion. Mike - spoiler alert - was not the name of Jonny’s stranger. But it served as an ‘everyman’ name that would give followers something tangible to support Jonny with and also space to reflect on their own Mikes. Given the sensitivities of Jonny’s story we wanted to make sure that this was done in the right way and we worked with a number of mental health charities - including the Samaritans who have excellent guidelines for documentary-makers - to make sure that this was launched and managed safely.?

#findmike became the narrative spine for our documentary. A simple yet profound premise of one human being wanting to find another to say thank-you for helping them in their time of need that would drive viewers through the will-he-won’t-he-find-Mike conclusion. But yet it also had complexity which gave the story depth and layers for a narrative documentary. It had the feel-good hallmark of an underdog story trying to take on the impossible needle-in-a-haystack quest. It relied on more human kindness of people getting on board with #findmike. And it tested ideas of six degrees of separation and how a growing digital world could also be a force for good.?

We had always planned to take an observational approach of capturing the campaign as it unfolded and built in latitude to be able to respond to what happened so that we could really immerse audiences in the journey. This, in combination with the video diaries we asked Jonny to record throughout the process would provide an authentic portrayal of the realities of this story.? One that included the very real possibility that the campaign might not resolve in finding ‘Mike’ and build towards a different resolution - which we never saw as being less dramatic, powerful or negating the central messages of the film.

The only thing we had not prepared for was that #findmike would become the global viral story of its time! With an audience of 350 million people that attracted huge media attention around the world it demonstrated that this was a story of hope and redemption that had an identity beyond Jonny’s individual search and connected with diverse audiences, irrespective of their own experiences of mental health. We felt it was important to reflect this throughout the film which included setting it up as a story about humanity rather than illness and suicide and weaving in the connectivity of experiences that #findmike brought throughout the campaign.?

The Stranger on the Bridge was the highest viewed doc on Channel 4 that year, has been distributed around the world and has won and been nominated for numerous awards. Yet a decade on it is the continual wave of people writing to us about their ‘Mike’ and how the film has touched them that has been the true validation of producing something that we were told time and time again was too dark and wouldn’t engage viewers. Yes, there is a personal and emotive individual story at its heart that is not afraid to address difficult subject matter, but we always believed that #findmike speaks about bigger things, is centred in hope and looks for the lightness in the dark.

Today, that message is as relevant as ever - if not more - and continues to inform everything we do as a company, both in how we operate and the stories we tell to reflect the world we live in. The landscape of mental health has changed a lot since 2014 but there’s still so much more to be done.

Be kind. Be a ‘Mike’.

Watch The Stranger on the Bridge