Chilling PSA explores the vicious cycle of substance use and mental health problems

Ten years ago Tuesday, Harris Marquesano, a 19-year-old from Westchester County, New York, died of an opioid overdose after suffering concurrently from mental health problems and addiction. It’s common for such disorders to occur together and critical they be managed together, particularly with teenagers. But in Harris’ case, they weren’t. Indeed, his mental health and substance abuse treatments happened separately—and were often at odds with one another. Eventually, this mismanagement of care proved deadly. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs In the wake of her son’s death, Stephanie Marquesano founded The Harris Project to educate policymakers and the public on what she wished she’d known about so-called “co-occurring disorders” (COD). This week, The Harris Project spreads the word with its first major ad campaign—a visceral three-minute film from Havas New York that dramatizes COD through the story of a teenage girl taking part in a drinking game. Directed by Daniel Wolfe, founder of Love Song, the film begins innocently as a backyard gathering of high school friends. But it grows ever darker, as the girl at the center of the story slowly reveals the truth about how her mental-health problems are driving her substance abuse—and vice versa. The need for awareness While many people are vaguely aware that substance misuse and mental health disorders often go hand in hand, relatively few realize just how directly each can exacerbate the other—or how critical it is they be treated as one. So, while Stephanie Marquesano has been working on the policy front, The Harris Project also saw a need for a broad awareness campaign targeting teens and their parents. “It’s crazy to hear the stories,” said Josh Kornrich, a senior producer at Havas and a longtime friend of the Marquesano family, who brought the group to the agency’s attention. “You check into a rehab facility and you’re not allowed to talk about your mental health issues—‘Just get clean,’ right? You leave, you relapse, you go to a therapist, who says, ‘We can’t have a session. You’re fucked up right now. You need to get clean.’ That’s what happened with Harris. He was bouncing between two totally separate treatment clinics, and he ultimately overdosed.” The teenage years are a critical time on both fronts—when mental health diagnoses are often first made, and when kids first gain access to substances. “It’s a perfect storm,” said Tyronne Schaffer, creative director at Havas. “Whether it’s having fun—or more likely, a situation where they’re self-medicating—it’s this confusing time where these two things together can be particularly dangerous.” To kick off creative development, Havas spoke with more than 50 teenagers in recovery to hear their stories—and even bounce script ideas off them. After setting a goal of realness and relatability, they shopped a final script around to directors. Wolfe, who is sober himself after struggling earlier in life with mental health and substance issues, was immediately struck by the material. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here “He reached out to us and said, ‘I fucking love this. This is so dead on,’” said Dan Lucey, chief creative officer and co-CEO of Havas New York. “The crew was sober, the lead actress was sober, he was sober. It went all the way down into the production of this—people who have been affected by this issue.” A looping creative concept The power of the film derives largely from its circular nature—the phrase “Drink if you...” constantly repeated, mirroring the cyclical nature of addiction and spiraling mental health. The creative team said a drinking game was the perfect vehicle for this. “Drinking games speak to both generations,” said Schaffer. “Our parents grew up with them. There’s drinking games on YouTube and TikTok now. It’s this universal kind of acceptance and turning the other way when it comes to experimenting with substances.” It also “feels really innocent,” he added, and was “a nice way to lead into this much more serious notion.” The truth-or-dare aspect of the game also forces the main character into revelations she might otherwise avoid, Lucey added. “It’s a way to admit something you’re not admitting to yourself or to the group,” he said. “‘Drink if you’ve ever done this,’ and you kind of silently admit you have. We thought that was a powerful thing.” Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2023 Ad spending, rankings and analysis for the top 100 advertisers Click here Schaffer described the voiceover as a “repeating drum” that gets to the heart of the unhealthy loop that can be so dangerous. “It’s a big part of what these individuals go through,” he said. “They might use [substances] to feel better, but then it becomes the problem and it feeds back into itself.” The team was careful not to show too much actual substance use, which in a cinematic environment can send the wrong message. “There’s already so much of that out there. We wanted to stay away from ‘Euphoria,’ which almost glorifies substance use,” said Kornrich. “There are visual nods to it, whether she’s smoking the bong or her nosebleed at the end. But the VO and the repeated mantra allow you to focus more on the mental-health [aspect] and paint a picture of this character as an archetype of somebody who’s struggling with both of these issues.” Truth in casting Wolfe cast Austin Patrick in the lead role. The daughter of actors Robert Patrick (who played the liquid-metal antagonist in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”) and Barbara Patrick, Austin is also in recovery—and drew on her experiences while filming. “We didn’t know who she was when we casted her, but Daniel [Wolfe] has a really meticulous way of casting, working within his circuit of L.A. actors and actresses,” said Kornrich. “So we had this lens, especially for the hero character, of somebody who could channel actual lived experience. Some of the other kids had connections [to the subject matter], too. We were also careful about age. If you skew a little too young, you could not really be able to stomach the film.” “He casted for high emotion and relatability,” added Schaffer. “Daniel is amazing at capturing emotional moments in his films. Especially with this, there was a truthfulness that needed to come through. [Patrick’s] naturalistic performance was based on her personal history. Her ability to tap into where she’s been, and what she’s seen, I think just made it really powerful.” In a statement, Wolfe said he was honored to work on the project. “The story needed to relate across a wide range of experiences,” he said. “I hope anyone who sees themselves in this film is able to find the help that didn’t exist for many of us when we were young.” Media plan for engagement The Harris Project is counting on virality, donated media and influencers to get the film in front of as many people as possible. AMC has agreed to show it before feature-film screenings in hundreds of theaters. Influencer sharing is a major element, too—particularly TikTokers who post about addiction and sobriety. The Harris Project has developed relationships specifically within the community around Cooper Noriega, a TikTok creator who died in June 2022—like Harris, at age 19 of an accidental overdose. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs The film even contains specific references to that community. One of the actors in the film is wearing Cooper Noriega’s nail polish. The journal that the lead character writes in is Harris’ journal. “We have these little Easter eggs to memorialize them,” said Kornrich. “That’s a big part of the TikTokers’ narrative—that a little piece of somebody they knew is in this film.” There’s also a vertical version of the film for TikTok and Instagram. The agency is cutting shorter clips for social sharing and encouraging viewers to post their own “Drink if you...” confessions. The film will also be shown to policymakers in Washington. “Research shows one in two people with substance use issues also struggle with mental health challenges,” Stephanie Marquesano said in a statement. “The goal of this campaign is to bring to life the intricacies of co-occurring disorders, greatly impacting the work I am doing to help young people, their families, school districts and communities understand the link.” Metrics for success The Harris Project’s website, which was built by Havas’ team in Ukraine, has extensive resources about co-occurring disorders—and shows how deeply Marquesano is working to affect policy. The Havas film, meanwhile, addresses the problem from the other side—aiming to broadly boost awareness on a mass scale. “Stephanie is working on concrete ways to change the system. Awareness is our ultimate KPI,” said Lucey. “Making people aware that one in two people suffering from mental illness are also using or misusing substances—we want to get that seeded into the world.” “It takes a special type of person to turn their grief into an advert,” added Kornrich. “Stephanie relives this every day. The 10-year anniversary is obviously another layer of emotion. But she’s drawn to the power of advertising because of its reach. She’s done an amazing amount of work on her own, but creating a succinct, clear story that can be distributed nationally can also make a big impact.” Kornrich hopes the film has a shelf life that extends well beyond the anniversary. “There’s a relatability and realness to it, on a much larger scale than one individual could do by herself,” he said. “The hope is it continues to snowball and make waves. If we can affect even one life, that would be incredible.” Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here

Chilling PSA explores the vicious cycle of substance use and mental health problems

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