What You Don't See

20+ Content Pieces | 4 Audience Stories | 55,975 Social Reach

What You Don’t See is an integrated mental health awareness campaign created to make the invisible visible.

The idea was rooted in a simple truth: the life someone presents to the world may look completely different from the one they are actually living. Across four stories—a teen, a mother, a farmer and an international community member—we juxtaposed the image of a seemingly “perfect” life with the mental health struggles happening beneath the surface.

What began as a :60 hero film grew into more than 20 pieces of campaign content spanning short-form video, social, digital and outdoor—giving one central idea multiple opportunities to reach people throughout the Barren River Area.

The Challenge

Mental health campaigns have to walk a difficult line. The subject deserves emotional weight, but the creative can't become so heavy-handed that audiences disengage.

Our challenge was to talk about mental health in a way that felt human, visually arresting and relevant across four distinct audiences. More importantly, we needed to communicate something inherently difficult to show: the gap between what we see in another person's life and what they may actually be experiencing.

That tension became the campaign.

Instead of portraying mental health struggles literally, we built each story around contrast. The person speaking to camera represented reality. Behind them, an idealized version of their life unfolded—the version the outside world might assume to be true.

Making the Invisible Visible

The visual execution became one of my favorite parts of developing the campaign.

With each actor's permission, I used their reference photography to prompt AI-generated scenes depicting the polished, “perfect” version of their character's life. Those images were then animated and projected at scale behind the actors during production.

Rather than creating the backgrounds entirely in post, we ran the projections practically in our studio while each actor delivered their lines directly to camera. This allowed the artificial world and real person to exist together in the same frame.

The person was real. The “perfect” life behind them wasn't.

That became more than a production technique—it was the visual metaphor for the entire campaign.

The production team captured the campaign on a Canon C70 with vintage Canon lenses, creating an organic, cinematic texture that helped keep the technology from overpowering the humanity of the stories.

From One Film to an Integrated Campaign

The :60 film established the emotional heart and visual language of What You Don't See, but the strategy was always bigger than one video.

We expanded the concept into more than 20 individual deliverables, including shorter story-driven videos, social content, digital graphics and billboards throughout the region. Each execution was designed for its medium while remaining connected by the same central message.

Video gave us time to reveal the contrast. Social allowed individual stories to stand on their own and be shared. Outdoor distilled the idea into something someone could understand in seconds.

The result was a campaign that could meet people in multiple places without losing the idea that made it powerful.

The Results

Across the reported social portion of the campaign, What You Don't See generated 55,975 total reach, including 26,582 organic reach and 29,393 paid reach, along with 476 link clicks, 354 shares, 329 likes and 43 comments.

One piece alone reached 9,960 people entirely organically and generated 128 shares—an especially meaningful result for an awareness campaign built around starting conversations and encouraging people to carry the message forward.

But what I love most about the final campaign is how completely the original strategic idea carried through the work. From a :60 film to a billboard on the side of the road, every piece asked audiences to reconsider what they thought they knew about the person in front of them.

My Role

I led the creative vision, strategy and execution of the campaign from initial concept through final delivery.

• Campaign Strategy & Creative Development: Led the overarching concept and developed the campaign approach across video, social, digital and outdoor.
• Scriptwriting: Wrote the campaign script and shaped the four narratives around the central What You Don't Seeidea.
• Casting & Production Leadership: Led the casting process and coordinated the campaign through production, serving as the strategic and creative bridge between the client and production team.
• AI Creative Execution: With permission from each actor, prompted the AI-generated imagery using their reference photography to create the idealized worlds seen behind them.
• Projection Execution: Managed the projected environments on set, bringing the AI-generated creative into the practical production.
• Integrated Campaign Leadership: Oversaw the campaign's expansion across 20+ deliverables and maintained consistency across channels.
• Client Leadership: Led communication and creative alignment with the client throughout the project, ensuring the final work remained strategically sound and met their goals.

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