Campaign on Childhood Mental Illness Succeeds at Being Provocative

We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives.

— Autism

SO reads one of the six “ransom notes” that make up a provocative public service campaign introduced this week by the New York University Child Study Center to raise awareness of what Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the center’s founder and director, called “the silent public health epidemic of children’s mental illness.”

Produced pro bono by BBDO, an Omnicom agency that worked on two previous campaigns for the Child Study Center, the campaign features scrawled and typed communiqués as well as simulations of classic ransom notes, composed of words clipped from a newspaper.

In addition to autism, there are ominous threats concerning depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger’s syndrome and bulimia. The campaign’s overarching theme is that 12 million children “are held hostage by a psychiatric disorder.”

The public service announcements began running this week in New York magazine and Newsweek as well as on kiosks, billboards and construction sites around New York City.

“Children’s mental disorders are truly the last great public health problem that has been left unaddressed,” said Dr. Koplewicz, adding: “It’s like with AIDS. Everyone needs to be concerned and informed.”

READ MORE @ NY TIMES