DCMS 2024 Campaign to Tackle Loneliness

Loneliness. It’s a part of life. Let’s talk about it

Launching on 28th February 2024, DCMS ran a new six week communications campaign to tackle loneliness. The campaign was primarily aimed at de-stigmatising loneliness, supporting the government’s commitment to build a national conversation to normalise loneliness. Recent DCMS-led research showed stigma to be a key barrier for young people to talk about how they are feeling and informed the campaign’s focus on those aged 16-24, who are most likely to feel lonely but the least likely to take action.

We launched the campaign with the new strapline ‘Loneliness. It’s a part of life. Let’s talk about it’. We developed a suite of videos centred around giving loneliness a voice and showing young people experiencing loneliness in relatable situations where people might experience loneliness, including moving home, starting a new job and scrolling on social media. The videos, such as the one below, were shown across social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Reddit, pointing people to the NHS Better Health: Every Mind Matters – Loneliness webpage for advice and support. 

Press and Influencer Activity

To support the launch, we invited a group of influencers, including Eastenders star Bobby Brazier and Love Island finalist and deaf activist Tasha Ghouri, to 10 Downing Street to speak with the Minister for Loneliness and discuss their experiences of loneliness. The discussion offered the opportunity for attendees to share their personal experiences and thoughts on the subject, including how loneliness can be addressed. Using trusted voices that already have significant reach and positive resonance are key to reaching Gen-Z audiences, as this activity reached a combined influencer audience of 8.7 million. See the Evening Standard article on the discussion here.

Ahead of the launch, we arranged for the Minister to speak to The Telegraph for a profile piece (linked here), which included a strong focus on the campaign and the government’s wider ambition to tackle loneliness. We also arranged interviews for the Minister and the celebrity ambassadors to speak to Global for a package that ran across LBC, Capital and Heart, including a number of regional stations.

What’s next?

We are now looking towards Loneliness Awareness Week (10th-16th June 2024) and are in conversations with a range of stakeholders to further build on this most recent campaign activity and continue to amplify our messaging that ‘Loneliness. It’s a part of life. Let’s talk about it’. Keep your eyes peeled for some of our exciting partnership activity!