How Beavertown and CALM got men to open up over a bag of crisps

Here Be Dragons' objective was to raise awareness about CALM’s mission of normalizing difficult conversations to support better mental health whilst getting a notoriously emotionally closed and hard-to-reach audience to engage with topics they traditionally avoid. The aim was to create a moment that supports well-being and mobilizes against loneliness while also showcasing Beavertown as a facilitator of belonging and togetherness.

Brief

The target demographic was male, aged between 25 and 40 who are the most at risk regarding ‘shelving’ difficult conversations and not prioritising their mental health. As the audience is hard to reach and isn’t too keen on emotional vulnerability the agency couldn’t approach this brief in a way that felt twee, instead, it needed to speak in their language.

This meant looking at known behaviours in the pub to find a way in that came in a surprising format. Having discovered a TikTok of an American travel influencer being intrigued about the UK's habit of splitting a bag of crisps for the table, Here Be Dragons used this as a creative impetus to infiltrate the drinking occasion where the audience was both captive and in a position to tackle difficult topics. This is a sharing activity which is synonymous with the pub so it felt right for Beavertown.

Creating a mental health adjacent packet of crisps which, when opened for the table, contained CALM co-signed conversation starters designed to provoke men to engage with their mental health in a way that felt naturally aligned to known pub behaviours, i.e opening up a bag of crisps for the table becoming ‘Opening Up’ topics and vulnerabilities which otherwise had been kept sealed. The name then became the ‘Open Up’ crisps.

To create a hook, drive news and showcase the problem the agency commissioned a piece of research that found that more than half (56%) of people in the UK have pretended to be okay to avoid talking about their mental health, and 60% of feel there is still a stigma around it in today’s society.

Although this had great potential value for media, the audience needed to be fully engaged in the campaign. To do this Here Be Dragons partnered with and educated over 300 Youngs pubs and independent pubs about Open Up to ensure the 60,000 packs were distributed by informed and engaged participants - along with them posting about it on their own socials.

To lead the charge the agency tapped the comedian Tom Davis to ensure that the campaign had a relatable, relevant face for men to identify with and follow his lead. He created a video for the pubs to get them excited and on board, along with creating photography assets for media and social posts to ensure further reach. A media partnership with Lad Bible was also forged to again to get the audience thinking about opening up.

Results

The campaign achieved 272 pieces of media coverage and an estimated reach of 573 million, including a shout by Chris Moyles on his Xfm breakfast show perfectly aligned with the target for the audience. It raised awareness of CALM’s mission, with a 35.95% increase in organic traffic to CALM’s website and a 158.39% increase in conversions from organic traffic for the campaign period.

Data from the pubs showed that 54% had never heard of CALM before the campaign and 97% of those who took part in the research would now consider supporting CALM. Anecdotal evidence from the pubs shows that the audience was heavily engaged in the campaign, large numbers of the pubs witnessed live conversations that were prompted by the crisps and saw random tables interact with each other over some of the answers to the questions.

This was a genuine first in terms of an NPD. To ensure brand saliency for Beavertown whilst also not mentioning any of its core products was a

creative challenge which we successfully addressed, keeping Beavertown front of mind whilst also ensuring we kept to the guidelines provided by CALM to not encourage nor even explicitly mention alcohol.

Working with internal stakeholders at Beavertown the new crisps were trialled across over 300 Youngs pubs and independents nationwide, with bar staff

giving away packets for free as the study found that pubs can provide a safe space for these conversations, with 1 in 3 (30%) saying that they feel more at ease opening up in a pub.

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