MANILA, PHILIPPINES – In the middle of the world’s longest lockdown came a silent pandemic raging in the background, the mental health pandemic. With the National Center for Mental Health reporting over a 100% spike on daily hotline calls, it’s clear that the Philippines has had a surge of mental health concerns since lockdown. Many people experiencing new, complex, overwhelming emotions that are hard to understand, let alone verbalize.
So, to help people make better sense of any complicated feelings they might be experiencing in this pandemic, MindNation, one of Asia’s pioneer mental healthcare systems and digital creative agency Propel Manila, created the first-ever Complex Emojis.
Designed based on the most common combinations of emotions experienced in the pandemic, the Complex Emojis creatively captured and communicated hard-to-understand, complicated emotions in a brilliantly simple way. By recreating familiar emojis into more complex ones, it gave an honest reflection of our emotionally turbulent times and helped people to open up about their mental health.
“The pandemic has challenged us in many ways, and we will be seeing the mental health impact of the crisis in the months to come. Because of stigma, many are still unable to fully express themselves, recognize the need for support, and get the adequate help they need to cope. Having that conversation on mental health and prioritizing well-being has now become essential for individuals and businesses alike to survive,” says Cat Triviño, Chief Marketing Officer of MindNation. “We’re proud to have Propel as a creative partner in “Complex Emojis”, a unique campaign that promotes awareness, inclusivity, relatability and drives conversation around emotions that are otherwise left unexpressed. It is also supported with 24/7 chat with a Mental Health first-aider through the MindNation Facebook chat.”
Launched as social posts and as GIF stickers to connect to people with the same complex emotions, the Complex Emojis led to a 24/7 mental health chatbot designed to help people talk about what they’re going through. But more importantly, the chatbot could recognize keywords when human intervention was needed, and connected people to free psychologist consultations.
“We take mental health seriously in our agency,” says Propel Manila Creative Chief Raymund Sison. “In this community initiative, we wanted to truly capture what people were going through and helped create a safe space where they can open up. By making them feel seen, validated and understood, and giving them easy ways to open up and get the support they need any time they need it.”
On the first day of the launch, MindNation received a message every 3 minutes. A total of 1,927 one-on-one conversations opened and created safe spaces for people to talk about their mental health. With 95% average satisfaction rating on quality of mental health support provided.
Complex Emojis is a mental health initiative by MindNation and digital creative agency Propel Manila, to help people cope with the mixed and complicated emotions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visit the MindNation page to learn more about this campaign and mental health: https://www.facebook.com/themindnation
