Jason Postelwait

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has a position and reach in the industry that allow them to choose how some of their excess ad slots get used every year. As a way of giving back and doing good for the world, they regularly choose to pay for and run a PSA to fill those time slots, purely for the benefit of viewers and those that might be in need. It typically centers around a specific cause, and they help raise money, awareness, traffic, etc. for it.

Well this particular year, the board chose mental illness because it was a topic close to home: a prominent member had a young son who suffered from schizophrenia. They learned through research that the most susceptible age group was 13-20 year-olds. They came to us to help kids in that age range identify possible warning signs and begin opening up to talk about it.

We purposely cast teens and young adults who suffered from mental illness so they could speak authentically from experience. I wrote an open-ended concept that started with asking them what they wanted to be when they grew up, followed by questions that got increasingly personal. The goal was to first, get them to open up emotionally about their struggles – knowing that if we gently pushed them, they would most likely express the “turn” in the spot: the fact that they wanted to be “normal” or “like everyone else" at some point. We didn’t know exactly what we were going to get, but the risk paid off. Every single response in the spots (beside the CTA) is authentic, sincere, and unscripted.

The spot launched July 23rd, 2013. Because we were in the DC area, the NAB had the ear of the White House, and the administration felt how important the message was, they wanted to kick it off with a live White House press event presentation featuring Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services at the time. It was a privilege to attend and it was really neat to see our hard work spotlighted by government leaders in a position to bolster its importance.

After the first month on air, the spot generated the equivalent of almost $7M in ad revenue. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK) saw an increase of about 7% in July and August of 2013 (roughly 13,000 calls), spiking each time the commercial ran. The spots appeared on 98% of U.S. television networks, a solid national reach.

I also wrote all site content for ok2talk.org.

This was the most rewarding, challenging, and positive campaign I had the privilege of being a part of in my career so far. I still think about this summer very fondly.

Won: Addy (TV, and campaign)