988 National Paid Marketing
SAMHSA’s 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is running paid awareness ads over the course of 8 months (June 2024 – January 2025) with select audiences consisting of a research-informed paid media buy with national reach. The effort is an initial step towards creating a larger and more comprehensive campaign in the future.
Current Plans
As SAMHSA continually works to improve awareness of 988 across the United States, the 988 Lifeline will run ads designed to reach communities that are disproportionately affected by suicide.
The initial paid SAMHSA ads will run on digital communications platforms and channels from June 2024 to January 2025 and will reach five audiences during these months:
- LGBTQI+ and AI/AN young adults and
- LGBTQI+, Black, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) teens
Vibrant Emotional Health, the 988 Lifeline Administrator, is expected to launch advertising to additional audiences in fall 2024. Details will be shared by Vibrant when available.
The multimedia ads will appear on a variety of sites and on platforms and channels such as Hulu, YouTube, social media (including Meta, Snapchat, Reddit), iHeart Media, Indian Country Media, video games, apps, and podcasts.
The ads will have national reach, and rather than targeting by geography or region, they will be placed on digital platforms and channels that are commonly used by the audience no matter where they are. The exception is ads for AI/AN teens who, in addition to being reached via national channels, will be reached via digital ads run in the geographic areas of local events.
Following CDC guidelines for creating awareness with mass-reach health communication campaigns, our goal is to reach each member of our target audiences – in all the places they reside – with an ad at least 12 times across multiple touch points on average. Based on past public health communications campaigns, creating awareness is a continual process and is the first step of several stages of a behavior change campaign (see below graphic adapted from Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change and CDC Best Practice User Guides for Health Communications in Tobacco Prevention and Control (PDF | 6.7 KB)).
Visual: Stages of Desired Behavior Change. A flow of changes starting with Awareness, followed by Knowledge (Concern), followed by Relevancy (Attitude), followed by Readiness, followed by Initial Behavioral, followed by Sustained Behavior. Awareness: Duration: 3-6 months. Attitude: Duration: 6-12 months. Behavior: Duration: 12-18 months.
Timeline
We began by rolling out ads for LGBTQI+ and AI/AN young adults on a limited number of platforms between June – September 2024. Between September 2024 to January 2025, we increased the number of platforms for these audiences and layered in ads for our teen audiences. The staggered approach gives SAMHSA time to incorporate feedback from continual audience testing and ad performance. We anticipate that ads will run through the third week of January 2025.
Research-Informed Messaging
The marketing and its messages are informed by 988 Formative Research and its accompanying 988 Suicide and Lifeline Communication Toolkit (PDF | 926 KB). The research was a SAMHSA-supported, collaborative effort led by the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, and the Ad Council Research Institute.
After applying formative research recommendations, the ads were survey- and focus-group tested with a sampling of young adults and teens, and included respondents from the select audiences.
Marketing Materials
These images are a sample of the graphic and video ads that SAMHSA is running on digital communications platforms.
