Bridge 2 Bridge Freedom Run

Just like that the idea of the Bridge 2 Bridge Freedom Run was born. Undertaking a 24-hour run around the two largest Palmerston North bridges, Shaun was happy if he raised $100 and awareness throughout the community to support free access to counselling services for youth. Little did he know then the impact of his efforts would be heard across Palmerston North, Manawatū and New Zealand.

Talking about mental health is difficult, especially with strangers. We set out to address this challenge through visual action, rather than solely relying on verbal or text-only communication that can easily be lost in the business of social media. Shaun’s persona would be placed at the forefront of the campaign establishing dialogue directly with the community like a casual chat with a close friend but scaled at a regional level. We relied on strong visuals through design, video and photography to portray our message. Our market research showed that people react better to visuals, especially video.

The project needed to be pushed through organic social media content with a focus on shareability due to having a restricted budget. Fortunately, this served to promote the overall objective of raising youth mental health awareness as the message was more genuine by being shared between friends and family, rather than solely promoted through pay-per-click campaigns. The intention was to have people lead the conversation, rather than pushing people into the conversation.

Upon campaign launch, public interest in his Facebook event page picked up, as well as with local media. With The Key To Life’s and Gumboot Day’s creator, Mike King, shouting out a personal message to Shaun upon completion. Other community organisations shared in the efforts. Overall, Shaun and the Manawatū community helped raise $13,370 for free access to youth counselling services. This was the second-highest amount raised out of 74 participants for Gumboot Friday 2021.

Through social media alone, the campaign generated 1665 engagements across the community organically, with a further reach across their friends and family. 7,217 engagements were generated through pay-per-click campaigns budgeted at $177.26, with a reach of 13,348. Social media videos collectively gained 10,128 views. 

Shaun’s story and purpose were shared across radio’s The Rock, More FM, as well as through Stuff, NZ Herald, emnetra and even The World News – breaking out internationally and smashing the overall project’s aspiration of raising youth mental health awareness.

This conversation starter had people talking online; across platforms such as Facebook, media outlets, and offline, stimulating conversations one-to-one with friends and whanau, on the Manawatū River and its bridges and most importantly, on the topic of youth mental health. The outcome clearly smashed out Shaun’s original goals in terms of fundraising and engagement on the day.