Spotify x CALM for Mental Health Awareness Week.

In May 2020, in my capacity as an Ambassador for Heart & Soul (Spotify’s internal program to support the mental health and wellbeing of employees), I ideated and executed a Spotify UK’s first ever partnership with a mental health charity, CALM, to support Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW). 

CALM had seen a huge increase in demand for their services since the start of the pandemic, coupled with a drop in donations, as people felt the impact of lockdowns. Spotify partnered with CALM in order to support the charity and raise awareness of the incredible work that they do, shine a light on the importance of opening up about mental health, and promote the theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 2020, which was kindness. 

Spotify created unique content in partnership with CALM experts and ambassadors for Spotify’s podcasts and music playlists in order to promote the importance of speaking about mental health, and increase awareness of the work that CALM does. We did this in several ways, including the following: 

• Spotify’s flagship Who We Be playlist was dedicated to the MHAW theme of kindness for 2 weeks, and featured video playlist clips from artists and creators including French Montana, Tinie Tempah, Idris Elba, Ray BLK, Ms Banks, Young T and Bugsey talking about mental health, acts of kindness and the positive impact that spreading kindness can have. This content was also shared via the Who We Be and Spotify UK socials in order to amplify its reach and start social conversations about the importance of kindness 

• A bespoke episode of Killing It, the Spotify podcast which investigates mental health in the music industry, featured host Jordan Stephens - a musician, writer, actor and CALM ambassador - discussing mental health with CALM CEO Simon Gunning

• The Wake Up / Wind Down podcast, hosted by Niall Breslin, featured exclusive content about Mental Health Awareness throughout the week, as part of the Daily Wellness mix of music and podcasts to help listeners through their day

• CALM experts curated the Mind Massage podcast playlist with content to nourish listeners’ minds and soothe their souls

• The Daily Pep! - the rebel-rousing, daily podcast for courage makers, creative, multi-passionate and unconventional women - saw host Meg Kissack speaking with presenter, model and CALM ambassador Shareefa J about the importance of discussing your mental health

• Spotify donated on-platform and audio advertising inventory to CALM, to increase awareness of and donations to the CALM helpline 

• Internally, the Heart & Soul Team hosted a week of workshops and talks on topics such as deep breathing, self healing, whole body living and kindness

We created a Mental Health Awareness Week hub on Spotify to showcase this exclusive content alongside additional music and podcast content to help listeners with their mental health, and promoted the partnership via dedicated on-platform editorial programming and marketing tools, alongside social and PR campaigns. Our on-platform promotion drove over 2.3M impressions, and our PR campaign generated 24 pieces of coverage with a reach of 2.5M across national, local & music press, including The Sun, The Daily Star, The Mirror, Evening Standard and NME.