Creating healthy Mississippi communities means ensuring people know understand the importance of caring for their physical and mental health.
At the height of the opioid crisis in Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Mental Health (DMH) stepped up to lead a statewide, collaborative effort to ensure Mississippians had the information and resources they needed to recognize and help reduce opioid use disorders in the state. DMH, along with six other state agencies, was hyper-focused on getting people into treatment programs that put them on the path to recovery and providing naloxone and naloxone administration training to first responders in every county of the state.
After a few short months of research, facilitating partner meetings, and leading key informant interviews, we worked with DMH and its partners to launch a statewide awareness initiative called Stand Up, Mississippi (SUM). The initiative included a statewide paid media campaign and a complete suite of marketing and communications research.
After a year and a half of working on general opioid education, the campaign evolved to include a focus on employers in industries with a high rate of injury and subsequently a higher potential for employees to receive prescriptions for opioids. The Opioid Workplace Awareness Initiative (OWAI) included a statewide media campaign and a comprehensive resource website for employers and employees in five industries, including farming and agriculture, construction, hospitality, oil and gas, and manufacturing.
We had the opportunity to work with DMH again to breathe new life into the Stand Up, Mississippi campaign by creating an updated brand brief, a series of motion graphic stories with custom illustration, and developing a six-month public relations campaign to guide their work for the coming year.
Our work on the SUM and OWAI campaigns has received numerous PRism awards from the Public Relations Association of Mississippi.
Services Provided
Branding
Graphic Design
Website Design
Public Relations
Media Planning and Placement
Communications Strategy and Implementation
Social Media Management
Video Production
Insight.
A significant barrier to people seeking the treatment for opioid and other substance use disorders is stigma. We focused on creating branding and content that demonstrated the importance of mental health and recognizing that substance use disorders are a treatable disease and not a moral failure or character flaw.
Innovation.
We developed content focused on ensuring employers across the state learned about the value of partnering with local community colleges to offer training and skills development to their employees and that during the hiring process, they recognized the NCRC as a trusted way to assess a candidate’s employability skills.