PlayersVoice launches first national campaign for Headspace
Initially launching as just a publishing platform featuring contributions from elite sportspeople, PlayersVoice has added a brand agency offering, PV Studios, with its first national campaign for Headspace launching today.
Developed for mental health organisation Headspace, the campaign features seven different male sports stars talking about their battle with mental health and the importance of caring for mental health as much physical wellbeing.
Adam Ireland, commercial director at PlayersVoice, told Mumbrella, PV Studios challenges the traditional siloed approach and comes from a place of trust.
“Traditionally the industry is quite siloed, the content is created for a brand by a branded content agency and there are so many of them, and then it is the brands job to go and find a media agency to run it at a low CPM and put it on YouTube and hope for the best.
“We believe that approach is really quite archaic, PV Studios is quite different because it comes from a place of trust. The end to end branded content service is really what PlayersVoice is all about so everything from the idea itself, obviously connecting young men to athletes and telling their stories, to the sourcing of the talent, to disseminating the content.”
The Headspace campaign, which features AFL players Tom Boyd and Dale Thomas, cricketer Usman Khawaja, rugby union player Kurtley Beale, rugby league player James Tedesco, Socceroo Daniel Arzani and eSports star Brandon Defina, aims to encourage young men to discuss their mental health and how they are feeling while enabling them with the tools to manage their mental health.
Ireland said PV Studios were given a brief to connect to young men and eradicate the stigma associated with being vulnerable.
“I know young men look up to athletes and they have a stature and presence in society and there is a certain stigma associated with men in general sharing stuff about themselves and being vulnerable, so we worked to find athletes who were really aligned with brand values and were willing to share a part of themselves and appear somewhat vulnerable and that’s a key part of not just any storytelling but any campaign, that relatability.
“So to show these young men in a really vulnerable way makes them more human and makes them more relatable and that drives more of a connection with the audience, which in this specific campaign was young men.”
After launching last year as an online platform for sports stars to tell their stories, Ireland noted how athletes make good storytellers.
“Athletes make great story tellers because they have amazing experiences to share and the key to authentically telling a story is to have people share their story in their words, that presented some challenges but it was really key to providing authenticity embedded in the content because it’s not scripted.
“We didn’t tell them what to say, we briefed them on what Headspace was about and obviously they had a strong connection with the campaign,” he added.
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