Talking openly about thoughts of suicide strengthens the will to live: this is the key message of the latest campaign video for the SERO suicide prevention project, produced by open up in collaboration with Luzerner Psychiatrie, the Pro Mente Sana foundation and the photographer Valeriano Di Domenico. The agency also supported SERO with its overall communications.

Every year in Switzerland there are 1,000 suicides and 33,000 attempted suicides. The SERO (Suizidprävention Einheitlich Regional Organisiert) project in Central Switzerland aims to do something to prevent this. SERO is a project of Luzerner Psychiatrie AG (lups; Lucerne psychiatric services) launched together with Gesundheitsförderung Schweiz (Health Promotion Switzerland) and other supporting and partner organisations.

The communications agency open up supported the SERO project with media relations and content creation. As part of this, various portraits of people with suicidal thoughts and their relatives could be seen and read in the media of Central Switzerland in the past few months.

Direct and catchy messages
To raise awareness of suicide prevention, Luzerner Psychiatrie, Pro Mente Sana, open up and the photographer Valeriano Di Domenico created a campaign video. Open up was responsible for the concept, script, direction and post-production.

With catchy statements spoken directly into the camera, the protagonists in the SERO video plead for a more open approach to the topic of suicide. Those affected, their relatives and the chief physician of Lucerne’s outpatient psychiatric services all get to speak. They include Caroline Chevin. The soul singer lost her husband to suicide five years ago. As an ambassador for SERO, she is committed to prevention at various levels.