Mpower, a pan-India mental health service provider and an initiative of the Aditya Birla Education Trust (ABET), has launched #UnpackTheBaggage, a public awareness campaign created in collaboration with Schbang. The campaign explores the emotions people carry but often leave unexpressed, questioning whether the familiar response “I am fine” reflects how they actually feel.
The film uses an everyday object as a metaphor for emotional baggage and the experiences people carry as they grow up. It encourages viewers to look beyond routine responses and reflect on their emotional well-being.
The campaign draws on Mpower’s Unpack Your Emotional Baggage survey of young adults aged 18 to 25 across ten regions of India. The findings point to a gap between experiencing emotional distress and seeking support. While 49.5% of respondents said they hide difficult emotions and deal with them alone, only 9.2% reported having sought professional help.
Speaking about the campaign, Roshan Wadhwani, Vice President – Marketing, Aditya Birla Education Trust, said, “One of the challenges in mental health communication is finding a way to move beyond messages people have heard before and make them stop and think. With #UnpackTheBaggage, we wanted to take a familiar part of everyday life and look at it from a different perspective. The idea was to create something that stays with the viewer beyond the film itself and sparks a conversation.”
Rajeshwari Rao, National Creative Director, Schbang, added, “This film is definitely a lot more personal to everyone involved right from its inception to its final execution. Because who amongst us hasn’t been scarred by life? Professionally and creatively, it ticks all the right boxes for us as the creative agency but more importantly, our partnership with The Aditya Birla Education Trust has been all the more gratifying given the subject matter of this campaign. We were stoked from the outset to bring their vision to life”.
Through #UnpackTheBaggage, Mpower aims to encourage young people to acknowledge their emotions and seek support when needed, addressing the gap between mental health awareness and help-seeking.
