A deeper shade of blue

“Look on the bright side!”. “Cheer up love, it may never happen,”. “Everyone gets the blues from time to time.” Hearing these and other such platitudes, even if well meant, are what can tip a clinically depressed person over the edge – literally. 

This clever ad was created for psychiatric research body Fondation Fondamental and Fnapsy (Fédération Nationale des Associations d’usagers en Psychiatrie) and launched last week on World Mental Health Day to highlight the distinction between ordinary blues and the serious, occasionally life-threatening illness of depression. 

Director Daniel Perez (Co-Creative Director of Serviceplan Paris) depicts a series of scenes in which gleefully insouciant doctors treat patients with serious pathologies, such as heart disease and cancer, with scant regard for the seriousness of their conditions. In the final scene a woman with depression is told to go see a movie, and have a laugh!