Player 1: I Need Support Vibrant Emotional Health

Campaign overview

Player 1: I Need Support

Developing innovative ways to reach new audiences about mental health and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline was a goal at Vibrant Emotional Health. The gaming community stood out as an especially important audience to reach: it’s a large and diverse population that skews toward young adults, a demographic at higher risk for suicide, while also being notoriously difficult to reach through typical public health messaging.

The gaming initiative built on a creative concept The Invaders (a Netherlands-based gaming/creative agency) had been developing since mid-2023: providing the role of support in real life by embracing the support role gamers already know from games.

Throughout this campaign, I approved the creative and media approach across both partner agencies. My team and I personally vetted every streamer who participated, screening specifically for conflicts with politics and the current administration, to keep the campaign's positioning neutral and ensure Vibrant and SAMHSA were innoculated from any perceived partisan association, given Vibrant's federal funding for the 988 Lifeline. I also edited specific associate documents, such as the streamer handbook and guidelines, created by The Invaders, to align language, expectations, and tone with Vibrant and SAMHSA's brand, messaging, and policy requirements.

Stage 1: Q2 2024

Launching Player 1

We launched Player 1 in May 2024 during Mental Health Awareness Month using a two-pronged approach. Working with The Invaders, we collaborated with Dr. Alok Kanojia also known as "Dr. K" of HealthyGamer_GG on two livestreams discussing mental health and highlighting the 988 Lifeline. His livestreams were with two other well-known streams, Ludwig (May 22, 2024) and Mizkif (May 27, 2024).

The results exceeded every benchmark set going in. The Mizkif interview broke HealthyGamer_GG's own channel records, outperforming his next-best stream ever by 114% in VOD views, unique viewers, and live viewership. Both streams were expected to see a minimal dip (100–300 viewers) during the sponsored 988 segment. Instead, both streams gained viewers during the ad read (+200 on Ludwig's stream, +300 on Mizkif's). Expected concurrent viewership during the segment was 5,500–7,000; the streams drew a high of 16,500 and 8,500 live viewers, respectively.

During the Dr. K/Ludwig interview, roughly 700 viewers clicked through to 988lifeline.org during the ad read alone, representing about 18% of concurrent viewers, with comparable engagement on the Mizkif stream (1,416 total link clicks across both streams combined).

Stage 2: Q2 2025

Breaking the Support Barrier with 988

Building on our 2024 results, we scaled up creating a larger, national, bilingual (English/Spanish) paid media campaign (display, streaming video, social, and search) using Player 1 creative that ran May 1–June 26, 2025 across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, alongside a streamer activation with eight Twitch creators, including MrsChimChim, JoshSeki, and JeromeASF. The creative compared the familiar in-game habit of calling for backup ("need a heal," "backup!") to the real-world act of asking for help. We incorporated custom 988 overlays for each streamer, timed and pinned chat messages, and "support challenges" where streamers specifically asked teammates or chat for help in gameplay.

This phase also had a public-facing thought-leadership dimension: I spoke on a panel at the Games for Change Festival in New York City, "Streaming Awareness: How Games & Influencers are Sparking Mental Health and Gun Violence Conversations," where I also met The Invaders' team in person. The panel explored how game-centered campaigns educate players on mental health support and gun violence prevention, using the "I Need Support" campaign and Project Unloaded's "Leave Guns in the Game" campaign as its two central case studies, with a lineup of streamers and campaign strategists (Alyssa Sweetman, Taylor Maxwell, Nicole Twohig, Isaiah "NotNoriaga" Pinkney, and Mrs. ChimChim).

Stage 3: Q3 2025

The 988 Support Marathon

The 2024 and the Q2 2025 campaign set up something bigger: the first-ever, week-long, 24-hour 988 Support Marathon, planned to run during National Suicide Prevention Week and overlapping with the second annual 988 Day. More than 30 Twitch streamers, including MrsChimChim returning as host, and others such as JeromeASF, Joe_Bartolozzi, Broxah, LydiaViolet, and MaryMaybe, ran a week of special support challenges designed to highlight in-game teamwork, open up conversations about mental health both in and outside of gaming, and share the 988 Lifeline as a resource. A nine-day paid media campaign (YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, and Search) ran alongside it to build awareness leading up to and during the event.

Results were beyond our expectations.

• 35 streamers live for 5+ hours each; 311,700 total live watch hours

• 1.47M Twitch VOD views

• 98.5% positive sentiment across nearly 4,000 analyzed chat interactions

• YouTube Shorts click-through of 6.79%, against a 3.65% benchmark

• See more below