They’re the kind of photos everyone has: friends and relatives, smiling and laughing; at birthdays, on the beach, around a table. But these pictures are different. Because the main subjects in every image took their own lives shortly afterwards. This was “The Last Photo” ever taken of them.
The pictures lay at the heart of a PR campaign run by the agency Hope&Glory for the suicide prevention charity CALM (which stands for Campaign Against Living Miserably).
The fact that the people who took their own lives appear to be happy is the entire point. It turns out we only think we know what “suicidal” looks like.
Don Ferguson, deputy managing director at Hope&Glory, says he became aware of CALM in 2018, when the charity was still focused on male suicide. “They ran an amazing campaign called Project84, with 84 statues of men standing on the ITV Studios building beside the Thames. It referred to the average of 84 men a week who were taking their own lives.”
The agency became involved with CALM during the first week of lockdown in 2020. “There was a lot of despair in those early days,” recalls Don, “and we were looking for ways to help. We knew CALM’s marketing director at the time, Ben Hawley, so we got in touch and pitched an idea.”
This was The CALM Lock-In: “If you can’t go out, we’ll bring the pub to you.” From 7pm until 1am there were quizzes, cooking demos and DJ sets, all run by celebrities. Participants were encouraged to donate, which funded the extra personnel needed to staff the charity’s rammed phone lines. Next up, there was a Mario Cart tournament sponsored by Nintendo.
Since then, the agency has regularly worked with CALM, primarily on a pro bono basis. “We became their de facto PR agency. We love working for brands, but when you can do work that might save lives, that’s a whole different story.”
Reading the room
Don Ferguson: "We wanted to share the stories behind the images."
The thinking behind what eventually became “The Last Photo” initially pointed in a very different direction. Planned as a sequel to Project84, the new Project125 would reflect the fact that CALM was now a general suicide prevention agency, rather than focusing on men.
Among the ideas proposed by creative agency Adam&EveDDB (who worked on the final concept with media planning agency the7stars and Hope&GloryPR) were initiatives like the installation of gravestones in central London. Don says: “I remember vividly the conversations around that idea. We’d just emerged from Covid, and the Ukraine war had just broken out, so we had to ‘read the room’. We decided this wasn’t the way to go.”
Don says Adam&Eve’s inspiration for “The Last Photo” was an Instagram picture of the comedian Robin Williams, apparently happy, with his pet monkey. Williams took his own life 20 days later. This evolved into an outdoor photography exhibition with a twist.
“Adam&Eve were at the creative heart of the campaign, but our role was about ensuring that it became widely talked about across the press. Particularly, we wanted to share the individual stories behind the images, because those really give you that gut punch.”
The big reveal
Broadcaster ITV revealed the theme of exhibition live on air. “When the exhibition first appeared, there was no explanation. It just said ‘The Last Photo’. There were QR codes, but they didn’t lead anywhere. People walked past looking at the photos for two days. When the news was revealed live, the QR codes with each individual’s story came to life. The contrast between the stories and the smiling faces had a tremendous impact.”
Celebrity dancer Shirley Ballas, head judge on the TV show Strictly Come Dancing, had submitted a photo of a loved one for the exhibition and helped drive media interest. Other famous CALM ambassadors also contributed by sharing their experiences and mental health battles. Some family members who had donated photos spoke to the media.
CALM’s internal team had helped to select the families – but even then, the subject was so emotional that some chose not to participate at the last minute. “We were very respectful of that. I’d say that choosing the families was actually the hardest part of the campaign. The target was 50 diverse stories, giving a broad representation of what this is like for different people.”
The campaign’s mission was to get people talking. Research commissioned by Hope&Glory and shared with the media suggested that few people knew how to detect the signs of potential suicide – and still less initiate a conversation about it. “The main message was that talking about this is a preventative measure. Yet it’s something that’s still viewed as stigmatic in society.”
A lasting impact
In order to smash the silence, Hope&Glory wanted to reach as many media platforms as possible. “We were trying to create a mass movement,” Don says. The campaign broadened CALM’s audience by attracting more media aimed at women. Generally, though, journalists got the picture.
“I was almost surprised by the sheer amount of media that wanted to cover the story,” says Don. “But on the other hand, it made sense. One in every five people has suicidal thoughts, so this affects all of us. There was none of the usual in-fighting with the press – you know, The Times won’t run it because the Telegraph have got it. Everyone wanted to do something.”
Within the agency, staff are given the option of working with CALM or not, given that it’s such an affecting subject. But Don says many of the core team have personal experience of the issue, and were the most motivated to contribute. “Of course it’s an upsetting subject, but the positive output is so rewarding.”
The next step for CALM is to focus on “survivorship”. “If you can show people who’ve come back from an attempted suicide, or suicidal thoughts, you actually give hope to others. Part of our job now is to tell those stories.”
Throughout all his years in PR, Don says he’s rarely seen a more enthusiastic team than the one that worked on “The Last Photo”. “Adam&Eve, the7stars, ITV, ourselves – we all threw everything at it. At the end of the day, that’s what made it such a great campaign.”