Ad Council: Seize the Awkward - Instagram

Seize the Awkward is an Ad Council campaign, built with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and NAMI, that encourages young people to check in on friends who may be struggling with their mental health. When the campaign needed its social presence to move beyond awareness and into something that actually prompted real conversations, Bravely came on to lead strategy, content, and creative across Instagram. Over a nine-month engagement (July 2025 - April 2026), we rebuilt the content system from the ground up: new visual identity, new messaging framework, and over 400% more content published. The strategy centered on emotionally useful, text-forward creative that gave people practical language for showing up for their friends.

Shares nearly quadrupled and saves grew fivefold, the clearest signals that content was being treated as something worth sending to a friend or coming back to later. Organic engagement rate hit 1.73%, a 44% improvement over the prior period, confirming the strategy worked independent of paid support. By the final months, shares per post were still climbing even as volume leveled off. The audience didn't just get bigger. It got more connected.

419% increase in saves | 319% increase in engagements | 259% increase in shares | 1.73% organic engagement rate

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