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Bell Let's Talk

Also: Bell Let's Talk Day

“Let's talk”

Canadian telecom Bell's mental health initiative launched in 2010 with a C$50 million commitment and Olympian Clara Hughes as spokesperson; on the annual Bell Let's Talk Day Bell donates five cents per qualifying text, call, tweet or share.

Years
2010–now
Country
Canada
Topic
Mental healthSuicide prevention
Asks people to
Seek helpTalk to someone
Strategy
Social normsTestimonial
Channel
EventsInfluencerSocial (organic)Social (paid)TV
Audience
General public

Evidence

ObservationalMixed

Booth et al. (2018), Ontario ITS 2006-2015: the 2012 Twitter-based campaign was temporally associated with increased slope of outpatient mental health visits among youth 10-24 (e.g. female adolescents' primary-care visit slope +0.094/1000/month). Cote et al. (2021): no change in Ontario suicide counts in Bell Let's Talk week (2011-2016); of 3,763 suicide-related #BellLetsTalk tweets, 68% were general comments on suicide deaths and only 0.6% resilience stories and 2.2% hope messages. Safe messaging: the campaign itself is anti-stigma, but the user-generated suicide content it prompts was rarely protective; authors recommend adding Papageno-type messaging. Critics also note the corporate-branding model.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Bell Canada (BCE) Industry, funder and creator

Credits (who made it)

  • Clara Hughes Individual, 2010- source
  • Lg2 Creative, 2011-2018 source
  • Media Experts Media, 2011-2018 source
  • Teehan + Lax Digital, 2011 source

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Booth RG et al. Youth mental health services utilization rates after a large-scale social media campaign: population-based interrupted time-series analysis. JMIR Ment Health 2018;5(2):e27 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.2196/mental.8808 · PMID 29625954
  2. Cote D et al. Suicide-related Twitter content in response to a national mental health awareness campaign and the association between the campaign and suicide rates in Ontario. Can J Psychiatry 2021 evaluation · 2021 · DOI 10.1177/0706743720982428 · PMID 33563028
  3. Bell Let's Talk (Wikipedia) reference
  4. Strategy Cause + Action: Bell tackles tough topic (launch campaign, results of first Let's Talk Day) news · 2011
  5. Strategy Cause + Action overall winner: Bell's big ride for mental health (Clara's Big Ride, 2014) news · 2015

Research notes

Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Clara Hughes (Wikipedia, 'main spokesperson for the Bell Let's Talk initiative' since its formation). Industry-sponsored; donation-per-interaction mechanic. Launch campaign (Jan 17-Feb 9, 2011) by Lg2 with Media Experts (media) and Teehan + Lax (website); first day raised $3,303,961.80 from 66,079,236 texts and calls (sponsor figures via Strategy). Lg2 also credited for Clara's Big Ride (2014) and the 2018 campaign; agency for other years and for 2024- not checked. The first Let's Talk Day was 9 Feb 2011, after the September 2010 announcement, so startYear 2010 refers to the commitment, not the first campaign. Credits fetched from strategyonline.ca 2026-10-22.

Record cases/bell-lets-talk.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign