TikTok and Hakuhodo Digital Indonesia provide safe space for mental illness warriors

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BY Kim Shaw

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Merging technology and heritage culture, TikTok’s latest campaign via Hakuhodo Digital Indonesia went viral as it helps erase the stigma against people with mental illness.

TikTok’s latest campaign, ‘Seeing the Unseen,’ went beyond just featuring prominent celebrity to raise public awareness of the mental illness. It utilized a Neurosky brainwave scanner to map the brainwaves of Marshanda, the actress diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and turn them into one-of-a-kind batik patterns to visualize the beautiful minds of mental illness warriors.

A video entitled the same was launched during International Mental Health Day on October 10 to help erase the entrenched stigma against the warriors. The campaign went viral, reaching over 220M internet users and creating 450M impressions.

VIEW THE FILM

Marshiella Pandji from TikTok Indonesia, said: “We are fully aware of the power of creativity as a storytelling tool. By presenting the brainwaves of mental health warriors, we wanted to show that they are not scary and different. We hope we can provide a more open and safe space to discuss mental health.”

Nancy Magried from Batik Fractal, which produces modern batik textiles made from a conflux between traditional art and technology, said the campaign adds another face to batik, namely the beauty of the minds of mental illness warriors.

Magried said: “We input the brainwaves of the warriors into jBatik bespoke software and translate the algorithm into beautiful batik motif. We are proud that we can take part in eliminating the negative stigma against these warriors.”

Hakuhodo Digital worked together with Hakuhodo International Indonesia, supported by i-dac Indonesia, came up with this campaign idea.