Revolt London

Comedian and author Ruby Wax is launching a campaign that uses digital-out-of-home technology to get people talking about their mental health.

“Feeling ceiling”, by Wax’s charity Frazzled and creative consultancy Revolt, starts on 12 May at Printworks Manchester and will run for the duration of Mental Health Week. The seven-day campaign is hosted on Ocean Outdoor’s 900m² digital screen, which is the largest digital ceiling in Europe and covers the Printworks’ central courtyard, as well as three internal streets.

A survey by Frazzled found 69% of Brits make small talk every day about things such as the weather, but 45% rarely or never discuss their feelings. “Feeling ceiling” aims to address this by using Ocean’s DeepScreen tech, full-motion VFX, special lighting, audio, and audience interaction to turn the screen into skylights, displaying dynamic weather conditions above visitors’ heads to convey “frazzled” states of mind. The public can interact with the display via a touchscreen, answering the question, “What’s the weather like in your head today?” by choosing a weather symbol which triggers an animation on the screen above.

“Brits never shut up about the weather,” said Wax, who founded Frazzled in 2017. “So we start Frazzled sessions by asking ‘How’s the weather in your head today?’ to ease into those deeper conversations. Our ‘Feeling ceiling’ brings that question to life, in the biggest, boldest way we could imagine. We hope to capture people’s attention and help more people weather their storms with Frazzled.”

The creative uses dark clouds that form into the word “Anxious?”, lighting to illuminate the word “Stressed?”, raindrops to form the word “Tearful?”, and rolling fog to reveal the word “Brainfog?”. A sunny, clear sky then conveys how a chat with Frazzled “can brighten up your day”.

The idea “looks and sounds amazing,” Ocean Outdoor UK head of marketing Jennifer Bell said. “Our competition judges like how a complex issue has been boiled down into a neat idea which is completely immersive and perfectly crafted for Printworks SkyLights.”

The campaign won the brand new Printworks SkyLights category at the 2024 Ocean Outdoor Digital Creative Competition. Run by Ocean and Campaign, the competition rewards creative concepts, rather than ads that have already been made. There were also six winning entries in the commercial brand and non-profit categories.
“With the recent proliferation of AI slop, we loved designing these amazing real-life VFX with the wonderful humans at Flipbook,” Matt Roach, creative director at Revolt, said. “It’s sure to captivate visitors and start lots of vital conversations.”